Twin Rivers teachers aid children in need

By JEFF STITT

jstitt@yourmvi.com

Teachers at McKeesport Area’s Twin Rivers Elementary School and members of the McKeesport Kiwanis Club have found a way to help children in need — the main goal of the nearly century-old club — while paying tribute to the memory of a late educator.

Knowing that some students in the school district come from families that have faced financial strain as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Twin Rivers teachers took up a cash collection and called on the Kiwanis Club to help come up with a creative way to help students. 

The teachers raised $300, and the McKeesport Kiwanians matched it.

Kiwanian Service Project Chairwoman Nancy Price, in partnership with Kiwanians Marsha Turner and Linda Brewster, came up with the idea of using the money — in the name of the late Jamie Brewster Filotei — to purchase a pantry full of snacks and non-perishable foods to distribute to Twin Rivers students in need.

The daughter of Linda Brewster and state Sen. Jim Brewster, D-McKeesport, Brewster Filotei, who had been serving as McKeesport council vice president and was a recently retired MASD fourth-grade teacher, passed away May 12 following a long battle with non-small cell lung carcinoma, a form of cancer. She was 46. 

“This is done in Jamie’s memory and we’re doing something to help kids,” Linda Brewster said. “She loved children. She’d go to work an hour and a half early just so she could be ready for when the kids came in to talk. She loved teaching.”

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