Webkinz sales benefit schools

JACKSON - A promise made has been a promise kept. It has been just about a year sinceMichelle Katz andMike Kafton, the owners of the White Butterfly gift shop, made a commitment to sell stuffed animals known as Webkinz to the public and to return a portion of the sale to a school which the purchaser determined.

For everyWebkinz purchased the owners donated $1 to a participating school and for every Lil'Kinz purchased 75 cents was donated to a school. In January the owners presented checks to representatives of the participating schools.

The Elms Elementary School earned $350.75, the Crawford-Rodriguez School, $314.50, the Johnson School, $311.25, the Switlik School, $288.50, St. Aloysius School, $203.50, the Holman School, $156.75, St. Veronica's School, $98, the Rosenauer School, $75.25, the Goetz Middle School, $53.75, and Jackson Memorial High School, $27.25.

"I am very excited to be giving back money to all those people who so generously supported our program," Kafton said. "We thought Webkinz provided the perfect vehicle through which we could reach our school kids and their parents. We accomplished two goals through this program.We made our kids happy and we raised money for our schools."

Katz and Kafton have decided to make this an ongoing project at the White Butterfly and said they would include Ty Girlz, Kookies and Beanie Babies 2.0 for 2008.