School supplies shouldn’t be agonizing purchases. But for low-income families, sometimes the choice is between food and pencils, or rent and a shiny, new backpack. It hurts to see kids embarrassed about the state of their clothes and school items, not to mention what they don’t have. These children are unable to compete on an even basis, even in a public school classroom.
How is this a way to break the cycle of poverty??
Answer: It’s NOT!
Since it makes sense that kids need to start the school year feeling good about themselves, Kars4Kids has done several back-to-school backpack and school supply drives in low-income neighborhoods. In addition to this work, we’ve awarded small grants to two organizations that ensure even needy children have what they need to succeed in school. These two organizations are Companies to Classrooms and Rainbow Pack.
Companies to Classrooms collects office surplus supplies and delivers them to schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. This organization began with a mom wondering that she was offered only a broken scissors to use when volunteering in her daughter’s classroom. Not long after, that same mom, Cary Weatherby, got a call from her husband’s office assistant: could her daughter’s kindergarten class use some self-sticking file labels?
Since that time, C2C has donated over $3m worth of office supplies to local school children. We were so happy to give them a hand, in a small way, with a small grant.
Rainbow Pack is remarkable in that it is a nonprofit that was founded by a ten year-old girl, now a lovely 17-year-old. Her class visited students at an elementary school in a low-income neighborhood, and Riley was shocked to see the children lacked even basic supplies, which meant they couldn’t do their homework! It nagged at Riley, and she determined to do something about it. Over the past 8 years, Riley’s creation, Rainbow Pack, has donated over 20,000 school supply-filled backpacks to school children in the Los Angeles area.
It makes thrills us that Riley came to us for a small grant. One of the best things we ever did. You go, Riley Gant! We know you’ll go far.
In fact, you already have!
