As school comes to a close what do you plan to do with your left over school supplies??
One local charity has an idea. Scraps KC is collecting used school supplies for classrooms in Kansas City.
"We're looking for supplies that maybe at the end of the school year students are done with, they're not going to reuse, maybe they'll end up in a drawer," said Executive Director Brenda Mott. "We want to have all of those supplies brought down to Scraps KC."
Mott hopes to collect 2,000 pounds of supplies at the end of this school year.
"We want freshly used bottles of glue, erasers, pencil grips, colored pencils, regular pencils, half used notebooks," she said. "We will clean them all."
Each adopted classroom must be in a school with 90 percent or higher free and reduced lunches.
"When they request to be adopted that means we will be providing them with a variety of supplies that they'll need for the new school year, as well as creative supplies that they can have in their classrooms to help advance their lessons," said Mott. "We have 100 classes that we'd like to support. We know that there are many needs in our community and that teachers are paying a lot of money out of their pockets to provide materials that the students need that thye might not otherwise be able to afford."
One of the classrooms participating in the Adopt a Class program is the Pre-K class at Primitivo Garcia Elementary.
"We need to be able to repurpose things and teach children how to do that," said teacher Amber McDougal. "We did a whole unit on insects and they took egg cartons and toilet paper tubes and pom poms and just created."
Brenda Mott hopes to have all of the donated supplies by the first week in June to begin the cleaning and repurposing project.
"We will use our community and homeless volunteers to help clean and repurpose all of the supplies," said Mott. "We will be taking them over to one of the local missions here. We'll be working with their homeless that they feed in the morning and we encourage them to stay and help clean with our community volunteers."
Scraps KC is partnering with Morning Glory on this project.
"This is a great way for the community to bridge zip codes," she said. "Whether you have a zip code or don't have a zip code, we want you to come together to build relationships."
If you are a teacher and would like to be adopted click here.
People who would like to donate used school supplies can drop them off at Scraps KC (1324 W 12th St, KCMO).
Here's a list of supplies they are collecting:
- Markers (dried up, too!)
- Artwork
- Paper (full sheets, not crumbled)
- Glue bottles (partially full, too!)
- Glue sticks and containers
- Pens (not working, ok)
- Empty/full tissue boxes
- Left over party goods
- Gently used classroom decor
- Ziploc bags
- Stickers
- Old school supplies
- Crayons (broken or not)
- Lids and bottle caps
- Wipe containers
- Gift bags
- Note pads
- Pencils
- Hand sanitizer
- Paint brushes
If you'd like to donate your time to help clean and repurpose the supplies, call 660-234-4470.
