On Monday, October 16, 2006 at 10:30 a.m., the Ricky Martin Foundation, Office Depot and Feed The Children are joining together to help school children in Puerto Rico by distributing 2,500 backpacks and baby furniture at Juan Ponce de Leon School in Puerto Rico. Executives from the Ricky Martin Foundation, Office Depot and Feed The Children will be present at the event.
Ricky Martin, Grammy award winning artist and San Juan native, has focused on humanitarian issues dealing with children for years. In 2004, Martin launched People for Children, a global initiative that seeks to inform, denunciate and to halt the exploitation of children.
The donations of backpacks from Office Depot will be distributed to 28 education institutions that provide living necessities to disadvantaged children in Puerto Rico. Feed The Children is additionally shipping children’s pajamas from The Pajama Program as well as baby furniture.
Group of children receiving their backpacks. |
"We thank Feed The Children, Office Depot and locally Fondos Unidos for working together on behalf of the children in Puerto Rico. We at the Foundation strongly believe in alliances and be certain this is only the beginning of our partnership as committed organizations that advocate for children's rights," said Martin, President and Founder Ricky Martin Foundation.
“In 1979, a young boy only a few hundred miles away from Puerto Rico inspired me to start Feed The Children,” said Larry Jones, president and co-founder of Feed The Children. “To date, we have now helped needy children and families in 118 countries around the world. We are always so excited to start a relationship with someone that has a great enthusiasm, like Ricky, to help children. Of course, we couldn’t do any of this without our donors. We thank Office Depot for their continual support of children around the world.”
ABOUT THE RICKY MARTIN FOUNDATION
The Ricky Martin Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advocate for children's rights and foster their well-being in critical areas such as social justice, education and health. Our flagship program People for Children condemns child exploitation. Please join our fight and visit us at www.rickymartinfoundation.org.
ABOUT FEED THE CHILDREN
Founded in 1979 by Larry and Frances Jones, Feed The Children is the 3rd largest international charity in the U.S., based on private, non-government support. The mission of Feed The Children is to deliver food, medicine, clothing and other necessities to families who lack these essentials due to famine, war, poverty or natural disaster. In FY 2005, Feed The Children shipped more than 183 million pounds of food and other essentials to children and their families in all 50 states and internationally, supplementing more than 1,463,065 meals each day. Since its founding, the organization has reached out to help those in need in 118 countries around the globe. For more information, please visit www.feedthechildren.org.
