Students aid youngster's warmhearted 'monkey business'

The extracurricular work of Pennsylvania College of Technology students Jonathan D. Yeagy, of Harrisburg, and Andrew E. Young, of Hollidaysburg, has provided an online face for an 11-year-old’s budding nonprofit.



The web and interactive media students designed a website for Aly’s Monkey Movement, which provides monkey stuffed toys to children experiencing difficult circumstances. The movement’s founder, Aly Creasy, of Muncy, received a monkey from her grandmother while in the hospital. Remembering the comfort her monkey had given her, for her 10th birthday, Creasy decided to raise money to purchase monkeys for other children who were in the hospital or experiencing other hardships.

More than 2,500 monkeys have been sent to children in hospitals and provided to fire companies to distribute at their discretion, among other destinations.

The students’ website work was recognized recently during a “Reasons to Smile” segment on WNEP-TV that featured Aly’s Monkey Movement.

“We were so blessed by Pennsylvania College of Technology,” Kristy Creasy, Aly’s mother, told reporter Ryan Leckey. “They put it above and beyond our expectations to make us a website, which has been the vessel for people to be able to communicate with us, refer monkeys, and donate.”

Yeagy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in web and interactive media in May, and Young is a junior in the program.