My name is Lee Willson, and I am the head cross-country and track-and-field coach at Kingston High School. I am writing this letter to thank our community members for their generosity and thoughtfulness in responding to our request for donations to purchase warm-up jackets for our track-and-field and cross-country teams.

Our two sports compete no matter what the weather conditions are, and our meets last for many hours. It has been our effort for some time to raise the money to purchase jackets that would help keep our athletes warm and protected from the rain.

We have had many hard-working and dedicated parents participate in a variety of fundraising efforts to buy jackets and were still far away from having enough money to purchase them.

We greatly appreciate and thank all of the parents who have given of their time and ideas to help move us toward our goal, which resulted in one of our parents, Mark Larson, contacting the North Kitsap Herald about our need for warm-up jackets.

Sophie Bonomi of the North Kitsap Herald wrote an excellent article on April 14 about our need for warm-up jackets, with information on how people could donate. She also wrote an article published in the Kingston Community News’ May edition.

Our initial goal was $4,000, with mid-May as a date we were hoping to have received the donations. The response was fantastic, and it is so gratifying to know there are so many caring and generous people in our community. These warmhearted people, in such a short time, exceeded our goal and we now have more than $5,000 dedicated to purchasing the jackets.

It is hard to express the gratitude of our team members, coaching staff, and administration of Kingston High School, but from the bottom of our hearts we thank you so much for your thoughtful donations. We are now in the process of reviewing our options for the jackets and have put together a committee, including athletes, parents, coaches and administrators to decide which warm-up jackets we will buy that will be used by both the cross-country and track-and-field teams. Our goal is to make a decision and purchase by the first part of June. If we make our deadline, we will have the jackets for the cross country season in the fall.

We would like to invite everyone in our community, especially those generous people who donated and made it possible for us to get the jackets, to come to our meets and see the team in their new warm-ups.

Once again, from everyone at Kingston High School, thank you so much for your thoughtful donation in support of our students. We will remember your warm generosity for years to come.

With gratitude,

Athletes, parents, coaches, and staff of Kingston High School

Kingston