Scholarships Available for Moorestown Summer Rec Programs

MooreKids is offering full scholarships to the Moorestown Recreation Department's summer programs.

Help MooreKids Give the Gift of Prom

'Now a kid who gets asked and who might not feel like they can say 'Yes,' can say 'Yes.''

MooreKids co-founder Maura Rafferty believes every child should have the chance to go to prom. Last year, MooreKids hastily put together a prom collection drive—dubbed "Operation Prom"—so it could provide tickets and dresses to Moorestown High School students who couldn't otherwise afford them. At the time, Rafferty only knew of five students in need, three of whom they funded. "We're pretty sure there's probably more than five kids who can't go to prom," she said recently.  So this year, "Operation Prom" is a little more organized. Rafferty, president of MooreKids, said she's already collected about 20 dresses—all in one night, the result of a mass email—and is looking for monetary donations to buy prom tickets ($75 apiece last year), as …

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Under the Radar

Give Thanks for the 'Small Stuff' in Moorestown

Our volunteers, our trees and, yes, our convenience stores are worth being thankful for this season.

Right after 9/11, the crisp blue skies were void of airplanes. I remember walking the dogs on Memorial Field, accompanied not by the muffled roar of flights banking in and out of Philadelphia International, but by a silence so unaccustomed that I stood still and looked up. The planes overhead are such a part of our daily lives we seldom acknowledge them in any way until they are no longer soaring above us, as was the case that horrific September day, and again, recently, when Sandy wreaked such havoc, silencing the skies. In a few days, Thanksgiving will be upon us. If you’re hosting this year, you’ve been menu-planning and shopping, polishing silver and organizing the house. Many of us will be flying to visit family and friends or driving…

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Moorestown 'Rich With Resources' to Help Kids, say MooreKids Founders

Through partnerships with the school district, the rec department and others, the women behind MooreKids want the children of Moorestown "to take advantage of everything this town has to offer."

Maura Rafferty and her fellow MooreKids founders heard it all the time, as they stood on the sidelines of their kid’s soccer games talking to other parents about the homeless and hungry children in town. “In Moorestown? No way,” the other parents would say. But they had the numbers that proved otherwise: 20 or so homeless children in the school district; nearly 400 kids (almost 10 percent) on the district’s free and reduced lunch program. “If you have kids in the school system, you might be more aware, because your kids are going to have friends who aren’t as well off as yours. You’re going to be more in touch with what’s going on with kids,” said MooreKids secretary Melanie Levan. “If you don’t have kids in the school system, I think you …

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