As principal of John Muir Elementary, and on behalf of our school community, I want to send a sincere thank you to everyone who donated their time and resources to provide food boxes to so many of our families here on Dec. 17.

Your generosity, caring, concern, and dedication to meeting the needs of families here in our own community that was made abundantly evident was greatly appreciated.

I have known many of the families served by this project for years and can assure you they are most grateful.

One of the highlights of this day for me was meeting many of you as you brought in your donations or helped to coordinate the delivery of the boxes to the families.

It validated for me my strongly held belief that there is a tremendous interest in our area of meeting the needs of families in our own community.

John Muir Elementary is a unique school here in the Lake Washington School District. We are fortunate to serve the most economically and ethnically diverse group of students in the district.

Many of our families came to this country to provide a better life for their children, the same as families have done since this country was founded.

We have worked very hard as a school community to help our families meet their basics needs, but as a school our time and resources are limited.

It has been my goal that we would be able to work corroboratively with the larger Kirkland community to meet the basic needs of our students so we can focus on providing an outstanding education that will allow them to achieve their own American Dream.

Your willingness to donate your time and resources will help make this happen for students and their families.

The Kirkland Nourishing Network is creating a model of what it means to be a community.

Thank you for going out of your way to make a difference in the life of a child by being a part of this network.

Jeff DeGallier, Principal of John Muir Elementary School