Ordinary Supplies, Extraordinary Impact Staff Contribution
IMAGINE YOU ARE EIGHT YEARS OLD. YOU REPORT TO HOMEROOM on your first day of school only to see kids opening their new backpacks full of notebooks, pencils, markers, and scissors – laughing and comparing supplies. You showed up with nothing because your family couldn't afford school supplies. How would you feel? How would you do your math homework or your art project? Crayons to Computers exists to level the playing field in the classroom by ensuring that students in need have the tools to succeed in school. It's simple, yet so critical. Teachers commonly spend $500 to $1000 of their own money each year to provide basic supplies as well as incentive and enrichment items for their classrooms. Since its inception, Crayons to Computers’ flagship program is the Teacher Free Store in Bond Hill. Teachers from schools (preschool through 12th grade) where 60% or more of the student population benefit from the USDA’s free and reduced cost lunch program are eligible to shop with. Crayons to Computers serves a 16-county area, including 7 counties in Northern Kentucky, 6 counties in Ohio and 3 counties in Indiana. Since January of this year, 569 Northern Kentucky teachers representing 97 schools have shopped at the Free Store 1,074 times and received $579,906 worth of product/materials. Some teachers (particularly those in the southern portions of Northern Kentucky) face a drive of 30 to 75 miles one-way to come to the Teacher Free Store. To address these time and distance barriers, Crayons started a Mobile Outreach Program (MOP) in 2014. A 15-foot box truck takes a subset of the store out to those more distant schools to benefit the teachers and their students in need. Since January, the MOP has visited 27 schools in Northern Kentucky and distributed $134,549 in product/materials. A total of 853 teachers have benefited from these visits.
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NORTHERN KENTUCKY BUSINESS JOURNAL