As part of the “Fill that Bus!” campaign, four Rotary Clubs will be collecting school supplies that Crayons2Calculators will provide free of charge to classroom teachers in the Durham Public Schools system to help them better engage and educate their students.
The supplies drive started Monday and will continue until August 18. To donate, all you have to do is drop your school supplies off at a collection location during regular business hours. There are numerous locations throughout Durham, including our Ninth Street office, 714 Ninth St. Suite 207-A.
Check out the full list of partners here.
The 10 most needed items are: boxes of crayons, folders, bottles of glue, glue sticks, index cards, boxes of markers, packs of pencils, rulers, scissors and spiral notebooks.
If you can’t donate before August 18; or you just want to see what a school bus full of crayons, glue and scissors looks like; the “Fill that Bus!” event will take place on that day outside the Office Depot, 4001 Chapel Hill Blvd. Rotary volunteers will be on hand to load all of the donated supplies onto the school bus.
Crayons2Calculators is a Durham non-profit that aims to provide equal resources to all students. According to Crayons2Calculators, teachers spend an average of $500 to $1000 of their own money on classroom supplies each year. With 60 percent of students in the Durham Public Schools qualifying for free- or reduced-price lunch, Durham teachers can’t ask parents to provide needed supplies. This can hinder a teacher’s ability to implement their desired lessons.
Crayons2Calculators runs a warehouse that will be used to distribute the school supplies to Durham teachers for free. Every month Crayons2Calculators will invite Durham teachers to the warehouse to “buy” $50 worth of supplies for their classes.
