Kids & Family

MHS Students Honor Teacher's Daughter through Coat Drive

Members of the MHS Celtic Club held their annual coat drive and donated a large amount of coats to those in need, while honoring the memory of a teacher's daughter.

Members of the Millburn High School Celtic Club are honoring the memory of the daughter of one of their club advisor's through their annual coat drive. The club is helping those in need stay warm this holiday season by donating coats they collected through the drive.

The club, which has organized the coat drive for years, has held the coat drive in honor of Kelly Creegan, the daughter of club advisor Elise Creegan, who died in 2011, since last year.

The club managed to collect a number of coats through the drive and donated them to Eva’s Kitchen in Paterson, N.J.

The annual coat drive has been around for years, according to Chris Feeley, another advisor to the club, but the club has taken a more personal approach to the drive since last year when they chose to honor Kelly Creegan.

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“In 2012, the Celtic Club decided to honor the memory of Mrs. Creegan’s daughter by holding the coat drive in her name,” Feeley said through email correspondence with the Patch. “This has enabled the Celtic Club to perform an important act of public service and also honor the memory of Kelly Creegan during the holidays.”

The Celtic Club is a group of students who come together to promote Irish cultural awareness and foster community service.

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“Our mission is to promote Irish and Irish-American cultural awareness as well as promote community service,” Feeley said. “The coat drive is probably our largest community outreach event of the year.”

Feeley stated that in December 2012, the Celtic Club raised more than 200 coats that were donated to local shelters and to families that were displaced by Super Storm Sandy.  

Feeley also stated that a similar coat drive was also held in the Creegan Family hometown of Ridgewood, N.J.

“This year, the Celtic Club also managed to raise a significant number of coats for donation to Eva’s Kitchen,” Feeley said. “We did not get a count of the exact number of coats for this year, but we managed to raise enough to fill up Mrs. Creegan’s SUV and those coats were then combined with the coats raised by the greater Ridgewood Community Coat Drive.” 



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