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Students Collect Items for Moon Township Troops Serving Overseas

Help Moon Township-area military members deployed in Afghanistan.

Moon Area High School and Sewickley Academy students are collecting items to be sent to local military members deployed in Afghanistan.  Moon student John Bal and Sewickley Academy student Jack Matten are soliciting donations for care packages, which will be shipped to Moon Township's 303rd Army Reserve Unit, based at McGarity Reserve Center off University Boulevard.  The students hope to gather toiletries and basic comfort items for the unit. In addition, they seek to raise $1,000 to pay for shipping costs.  Collection sites are located at:  Suggested items for the care packages:  For questions, call 412-859-1281 or email, 303rdCare@gmail.com

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From Moon to Breezy Point: Firefighters Offer Truck to Hurricane-Battered Town

The Moon Township Volunteer Fire Department will give a fire truck to a section of Queens impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

Hurricane Sandy sparked 94 fires across New York City, but none of them as bad as the one in Breezy Point.  Searing through 126 homes in the seaside Queens neighborhood, the blaze ranks among the worst in New York City history. Spread by hurricane winds, flames raged for 10 hours, sweeping from home-to-home, according to area media. For the community's battered volunteer fire department, the storm and subsequent fire came with an especially heavy toll.  "(Breezy Point) was inundated with floodwaters and winds," said Moon Township Fire Chief John Scott. "And the fire department lost everything. Lost buildings, lost trucks, lost all of their equipment.  "They were devastated," said Scott, who estimated that the department sustained more than…

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M

10:48 pm on Friday, February 8, 2013

Me, too! It speaks well for our fire department, for our community, for our citizens that we are a community that empathizes with and, more importantly, acts to help others in need.   more ›

Moon Area High School Students Donate to Troops in Afghanistan

Students send care packages and words of support for troops as they celebrate the holidays while deployed.

Megan Turak said it started out with pillows and a poster board—students at Moon Area High School were to sign the items and send them to troops serving in Afghanistan. "But the outpouring of support that came from the students was just incredible," Turak said. "I was just amazed, really, by the students' support and the depth of their understanding."  Turak, of the Scott-Township based Military Family Network, said students in the district went above and beyond, gathering donations for a care package to the troops and penning more than 200 letters, sent to soldiers serving at Forward Operating Base Sharana in central-eastern Afghanistan. The soldiers opened the care package on Dec. 16, when they celebrated at the base with a small …

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Tweet #PatchRebuilds to Help Hurricane Sandy Survivors

Patch will make a $1 donation to AmeriCares for every tweet with the hashtag #PatchRebuilds.

You can help rebuild communities that were hit by Hurricane Sandy by donating cans of food, volunteering for cleanup efforts—or simply sending a tweet. Patch is excited to announce our new effort to help support devastated communities after the storm. For every tweet sent with the hashtag #PatchRebuilds, we will donate $1 to the AmeriCares Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Fund, up to $125,000. Your contribution will go toward medical and humanitarian aid, grants and programs to help Sandy survivors. You can simply tweet the hashtag #PatchRebuilds, or go to our Patch Rebuilds website, rebuilds.patch.com/moon, and tweet directly from the site. A customized tweet that starts “My heart belongs to…” is created from the Patch Rebuilds website, …

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MASD Raises Money in Memory of Science Teacher

The school has collected more than $1,000 in the name of a middle school teacher.

High school and middle school students in the Moon Area School District raised more than $1,000 in memory of a science teacher killed last year in an Ohio car crash.  Michael Walters, a 34-year-old middle school science teacher, died in December after an oncoming tractor-trailer struck his vehicle at the intersection of Route 45 and Route 165 in Salem, OH. His passenger, Carie Ann Harris, 33, also died in the crash.  Students and staff have donated more than $1,000 to the Beaver Quarterback Club, where Walters served as a football coach, according to the Moon Area School District.  Jeff Beltz, a Beaver Area varsity football coach and middle school principal, said in a statement that Walters was known for his creative coaching style and …

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OLSH Receives $100,000 Donation

Money will help maintain tuition levels at the Moon-based high school.

An anonymous donor in December gave Our Lady of the Sacred Heart $100,000, which will be used in part for tuition assistance, according to the parochial school.  OLSH announced this week that its annual fund balance is the largest in school history at $150,421.93, thanks to the sizeable donation.  "It was a very nice year-end gift," said Cheryl Karashin, OLSH vice president for advancement.  School officials said the donation will enable the school to keep tuition levels stable for the upcoming school year. Tuition for one student enrolled in the school is $7,600 with a $200 activity fee for the 2011-2012 academic year.  Karashin said the contribution marks one of the largest donations in the school's 80-year history.   "What it means for …

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West Hills Food Pantry Reaches Donation Goal in Annual 'Mile of Cans'

The fundraiser brings in canned goods and food items from across the Moon community.

Volunteers at this weekend’s Mile of Cans fundraiser went the extra distance, bringing in 19,624 food items for the West Hills Food Pantry. The 15th annual event, which is the Moon-based food pantry’s largest fundraiser, aims each year to gather roughly 16,000 canned goods — enough to stretch a mile when lined up side-by-side. Event organizer Judy Littell said pantry volunteers are thankful to the community for its donation efforts. The fundraiser, which took place for the first time on the grounds of the pantry at Sharon Community Presbyterian Church, kicked off at 10 a.m. Saturday when volunteers went door-to-door in Moon Township neighborhoods collecting canned goods. Area businesses, churches and students in the Moon Area School …

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Around the Rivers

Sewickley Clinic Collects School Supplies for Needy Children

Donations may be dropped off at the Sewickley Chiropractic Center through Sept. 10.

The following story was orginally published on Sewickley Patch.  For many kids, the excitement of shopping for back to school supplies – the latest shoes, the perfect backpack or the hottest My Little Ponynotebook or G.I. Joe lunchbox – is one of the best parts of returning to the classroom. But for many children, fulfilling every item on that back-to-school shopping list isn’t easy when many households are tightening their budgets to make ends meet.  Dr. Jared Yevins of the Sewickley Chiropractic Center heard these stories from teachers who are his patients and decided he wanted to do something about it. “We thought it’d be a good idea to help out,” Yevins said. The Sewickley Chiropractic Center has kicked off its third-annual school …

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West Hills Food Volunteers: Summer Demand at Unusual High

Food pantry volunteers said an unusually high number of people are seeking food at the pantry.

The doors open at 10 a.m., but people begin trickling into the parking lot as early at 6. With increasing demand for the groceries provided by the West Hills Food Pantry, the earlier you get there, the better.  Volunteer Ron Goss fills metal-grocery carts in the kitchen as clients pick up their food nearby.  "When I started volunteering here 18 years ago, you'd have just 34 people show up," said Gross, a retired Moon resident. "You come here now on a Tuesday and we'll have 170 people in and out of here."  Volunteers at the pantry, which is housed on the grounds of the Sharon Community Presbyterian Church on Carnot Road and operated entirely by volunteers, said they've seen an unusual uptick in the number of people seeking its services this…

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