Drive for Supplies Gives 'Tons' to Students in Need

School doesn’t begin for another month, but parents, students and teachers didn’t wait to stock up on free, donated school supplies during Drive for Supplies, an annual school supplies drive held Monday at in Rockville. 

Now in its 12th year, Drive for Supplies is a collaboration between Montgomery County Public Schools and Learn Shop Inc., a Wheaton-based nonprofit. This year, 57 county schools, several Montgomery County Public Schools’ offices and local businesses collected nearly 12,000 pounds of new and gently used school supplies, from reams of looseleaf paper to composition notebooks, pens, pencils, folders and lunch boxes. Some of the donated supplies will also go to local nonprofit organizations and service providers that serve a high number of low-income students and families.

More than 130 student volunteers sorted, boxed and weighed the supplies in exchange for Student Service Learning hours. Boxes of gently used spiral notebooks with remnants of torn out paper still in their spines, bags of crayons, shoeboxes of pencil compasses and packs of 5-by-8 unruled index cards still wrapped in plastic were neatly organized on long cafeteria tables.

Drive for Supplies began in 1999 to benefit Kosovo refugees, said Kevin Newcomer, founder of Learn Shop Inc. Since 2002, when Montgomery County Public Schools began its partnership with Learn Shop Inc., Drive for Supplies has collected more than 48 tons of school supplies. Most of what is collected goes to local students, Newcomer said, although Learn Shop has also benefited students in Iraq, Haiti, Nigeria and Ecuador among other countries.

“The beauty of this is that it encourages students to recycle,” Newcomer said. “This is something that they can do at the end of the school year that has a huge impact.”

Pilar Alfaro, a school counselor, sifted through cardboard boxes of composition notebooks and highlighters for her English for Speakers of Other Languages students at Quince Orchard and John F. Kennedy high schools. Alfaro noted that more and more of her students are in need of school supplies, especially since the economic recession. “I find there’s a need everywhere I go, so this is a neat venture,” she said. “Our kids are always in need.”

Donielle Griffin, director of mission advancement at the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, looked through boxes of books and crayons and said that she was “beyond thrilled." YMCA offers dozens of programs through its Youth and Family Services in Montgomery County, so “the opportunity to find free supplies for our programs is great,” she said.