Kinnelon Football League to Donate Gear to Alabama Tornado Victims

Instead of throwing away old equipment that was replaced last year, the youth football league has found a purpose for its old padding, helmets and gear. The group plans to donate the equipment to a group of three towns in Alabama who have lost their football supplies in the tornados that hit the state in April.

Councilman Andrew San Filippo, who leads the youth recreation program, said the players were outfitted with new Xenith helmets last year that are designed to lower the risk of concussion, in addition to new state-of-the-art shoulder pads. The league also got brand new girdle pads which have the padding inside the protective gear.

"The question was, what to do with the equipment we had in town," San Filippo said.

San Filippo said that he was combing through emails from vendors attempting to sell the league more equipment, when he began replying to the vendors asking if they knew of any organizations who would be willing to accept a donation of the older equipment. A woman from Alabama answered San Filippo's email, he said, and told him that she knew of three towns in Alabama which had been whiped out from the recent tornados where the kids had no equipment to use to play football.

"We're packing up all of our stuff and it's going to three different districts," San Filippo said during a council meeting last Thursday.

San Filippo said the helmets will be polished, most likely with the Kinnelon logo removed, so that the kids in Alabama are able to feel like they are getting quality, like-new equipment. The Kinnelon league will be packaging the materials themselves and shipping them to the woman, who will then distribute the materials.

Mayor Robert Collins joked that Kinnelon would have a sister city in Alabama with the Kinnelon equipment, which San Filippo said will be nice.

"It's just everybody trying to get kids to play ball," he said.