At my kids' school in the UK we've recently been asked to help out in this way. A big problem as we live in quite a poor area. A few of us mums got together to try to do something. We used:
It's a portal, but some of the links were quite useful. I think it has US and international links as well as UK ones.
As an aside, I can't remember such problems when I went to school. Is it only me that wonders if somethings going wrong somewhere with the way our schools are run?
HI!! It was suggested to me to look into a program that is called www.adoptaclassroom.com
Org. can make donations of $500.00 or parents can donate $ in class to total $500.00 & set up an acct. thru Adopt-A-Classroom which the teachers go shopping for school supplies & an itemized invoice is sent to the org. to show how the $$ was spent. It's worth looking into.
Our school sells prepackaged school supplies at Meet the Teacher up until our supply runs out. We do not buy enough for the whole school. That would be too costly. We barely make a profit on this. We are able to provide supplies to students who are not able to pay for them. I think this year we have donated maybe 3 for this situation. We do this as a convenience for the parents. We have quite a few parents who still chose to go to the store and purchase what is on the list them selves. I'd say we order enough packets for about 475 kids in all the elementary grades at our school. We will cut our order next year because we will have less students.
As our bill is close to $30,000.00 this year, for about half the school there is no way we could provide supplies to the whole school on what we make as a PTO!!!
For our school we use www.schooltoolbox.com. In the spring we send home the flyer to order supplies for the next school year. At the end of summer they are delivered and the committee puts them in the classrooms on all of the kids desks (that ordered supplies). That way parents dont have to purchase the supplies and dont have the problem of not being able to find what is needed. I think we paid $38 total for everything. It saved time, money and headaches looking for everything. They even give you labels to put on your supplies and they give you a coupon for a dollar off your next years supply order.
We do a school supply purchase program, do the costing and advertisement in May and do purchases during the sales. This is a whole committee working this over the summer. We ask folks when they sign up if they'd like to donate a packet for distribution to those in need. We had over 25 packets donated this year. This isn't meant to be a fund raiser but we usually make a few hundred dollars. We use that excess to purchase the tissues and hand cleaner we would normally ask to be donated throughout the year. I have our forms and advertising (and action reports if anyone is looking for examples. Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
I actually enjoy some things about shopping for school supplies (I have that fetish for new crayon boxes too!), but I've got one pet peeve. Every year there's one item on the list that doesn't exist under the listed specifications. You know, like the two-pocket folder WITHOUT brads only comes in four colors at one store, while your list calls for five different colors, so you go to another store, where all the folders have brads, and another, where the color you need only has one pocket . . . This year it was the "two blue highlighters." I went to three stores and couldn't find any that sold BLUE highlighters in anything but a four-color multi-pack, which meant I finally had to give in and buy 8 highlighters to have the 2 required.
Does anyone else think this sets up a negative impression of the school for first-time parents? And would it really be so difficult to require the teachers to actually go to a store and make sure the items exist before the list is sent out? I know it must sound like I'm nuts for getting so worked up over this, but I swear, it happens EVERY YEAR!
I know it must sound like I'm nuts for getting so worked up over this, but I swear, it happens EVERY YEAR!