SEQUIM — Seahawk cornerback Richard Sherman has got ’em covered — and we’re talking local youths, not wide receivers.
Blanket Coverage, the Richard Sherman Family Foundation, recently donated 250 backpacks to foster children in Clallam and Jefferson counties — enough for each foster child in the two counties, North Olympic Foster Parent Association advocates say.
Locals Teri Cumming and Tara Johnson and others attended Sherman’s Blanket Coverage event Aug. 1, when more than 2,500 backpacks were given out.
“We just asked if they would donate to foster kids [in the region], and they asked how many it would take,” Johnson recalled, so she contacted Linda Cortani, liaison for Fostering Together, who noted about 250 backpacks would cover local foster children and siblings for both counties.
The 250 backpacks arrived in Sequim on Monday. Each one is filled with school supplies, from papers and folders to scissors, erasers, pens and a personal encouragement from a foundation helper such as “Be yourself” and “Smile.”
Foster advocates with Trinity United Methodist Church in Sequim say they will add other items to backpacks such as calculators for the middle and high school-aged youths.
The backpacks will be distributed to Clallam County foster youths at an annual foster families barbecue Aug. 27. Jefferson County-area foster children received backpacks Saturday.
Sherman formed Blanket Coverage in 2013 to provide students in low-income communities with school supplies and clothing so they can achieve their goals.
During his high school days, Magic Johnson — Sherman’s childhood idol — came to Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif., and spoke to Sherman and classmates on the importance of setting and achieving your goals.
Since that time, the Seahawk has made it his focus to “preach those same sentiments and help students achieve their fullest potential,” the foundation website notes.
For more about the North Olympic Foster Parent Association, see www.nofpa.org. For more about Blanket Coverage, see www.richardsherman25.com/pages/foundation.
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Michael Dashiell is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. Reach him at editor@sequimgazette.com.
