All these kids wanted for Christmas were warm blankets — and hundreds came their way

Reading through her students’ Christmas wish lists, first-grade teacher Jamie Coleman noticed the same request popping up.

Her students asked for blankets.

And not just her students, but kids in other classes at Parmelee Elementary, one of the largest grade schools in Oklahoma City where most of the children qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

“I was heartbroken, because it's something we take for granted,” Coleman told KFOR in Oklahoma City. “We have blankets in our house. I have blankets for my kids. I have several blankets for my children.”

So Coleman put out a call for blankets on social media and the response took her breath away: More than 1,800 blankets came pouring into the school, nearly double the 950 she hoped to collect.

“Our friends shared it. Our families shared it, and the next thing you know we have people we don’t even know dropping off blankets,” she told News 9 in Oklahoma City.

The kids watched the blankets as the blankets arrived, but they didn’t know they were for them.

They seemed taken aback when principal Michelle Lewis told them, “You get to pick out any blanket you want.”

Teachers spent an entire morning helping each student pick out just the right blanket for their bedrooms.

“I’m going to sleep with it,” student Lakota Huffine told KFOR of the blanket he chose with owls and foxes on it.

With hundreds of blankets left over, the school donated the rest to two other schools in the district.

This story was originally published December 22, 2016 at 2:27 PM with the headline "All these kids wanted for Christmas were warm blankets — and hundreds came their way."