The following time you go to Costco and see clients shopping for big flats of immediate soup or towering containers of breakfast bars, know there’s likelihood that they’re academics. Whether or not in elementary or excessive faculties, many educators put together for the beginning of faculty by stocking up on snacks for his or her college students — even those that don’t work in buildings formally designated “low-income.” As a result of children in want are in all places.
Jennifer Cowan, who teaches second grade, routinely spends $400 out of pocket every year on snacks, simply to make it possible for her college students aren’t so distracted by starvation that they’ll’t deal with classes.
Wealthy Stephens, a highschool basketball coach, has change into skilled at figuring out indicators of starvation in children as a result of he is aware of youngsters are unlikely to ask for assist. Each month he reloads his desk drawers with immediate soup handy out.
“It’s a satisfaction factor,” Stephens mentioned. “They’re by no means going to let you know, ‘Coach, I must eat.’ However there’s extra children than we would suppose who don’t have as a lot as they want.”
Like most educators, neither Cowan nor Stephens ask for recognition, and even reimbursement. “This, to me, is nothing,” mentioned Cowan. “It’s for my college students.”
For a quarter-century, readers of The Seattle Occasions have additionally pitched in, elevating cash by way of the newspaper’s annual school-supply fundraising drive in order that strapped households should not saddled with start-of-the-school-year bills that may simply prime $100.
Since The Occasions’ school-supply fundraising drive began in 1999, readers have donated greater than $1 million, each penny of which works to Hopelink, YWCA Seattle-King-Snohomish and the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness. The three organizations then buy faculty provides and backpacks for kids in want. This yr’s effort kicked off on July 4, and has to this point raised $18,465.
With faculty districts throughout the area going through dire price range cuts, the cash collected this yr is prone to have additional impression. Let’s preserve it going.
The simplest option to donate is online. Checks may be despatched to: The Seattle Occasions College-Provide Drive, P.O. Field C-11025, Seattle, WA 98111; electronic mail inquiries to ffn@seattletimes.com. The drive is a part of The Seattle Occasions Fund for these in Want, a registered 501(c)(3) Charitable Group.
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