During a recent holiday party, John Carpenter, the Massapequa Park actor/filmmaker, heard various complaints from his neighbors about the lack of classroom supplies at so many area charter schools, kindergarten classrooms, and even some childcare centers.

So Carpenter, in an effort to improve the situation, volunteered to lend his name as a well-known local artist to begin a campaign to collect gently used children's books, classroom, and art supplies. "Let's start now," he urged his fellow partygoers, raising a glass for all to see.

The project, dubbed, "John Carpenter's Building Our Children's Future," hopes to start out modestly, addressing one school at a time. Carpenter asked his publicist, John H. Meyer, to handle the project. The Minuteman Press in Massapequa Park agreed to serve as one of the drop spots.

Carpenter said the project only takes a few minutes from a shopper's busy schedule. Local residents, if they wish, can pick up such items as school glue, watercolor paint sets, puzzles, educational games, and stickers. They can then place them in a plastic bag and drop them in the box provided at the Minuteman Press, located at the corner of Park Boulevard and Front Street in Massapequa Park.

Carpenter hopes to make similar arrangements with other Minuteman Press outlets in the area. He has explained the importance of the project to Robert Titus, CEO of Minuteman Press International, a talk that leads Carpenter to believe that other stores will also participate.

For now, the Kiwanis Club of Wantagh has already picked up the campaign as a club project. Much of the project, Carpenter notes, involves educating the public about a problem that it isn't aware of.

During the project's kickoff photo shoot, Ms. Georgiana Sena, president of the Wantagh Kiwanis Club presented Jennifer Lyon with children's books authored by former New York State First Lady Libby Pataki. Ms. Lyon is a Massapequa native and a kindergarten teacher at P.S. 154 in the Bronx. The books will be used for Ms. Lyon's students.