At the Market This Week: Spellman School Supply Drive

For several years, Cheverly volunteers extraordinaire Ann Barsi and Aimee Olivo have spearheaded a very special effort: making sure that every child at Gladys Noon Spellman Elementary school has the supplies they need to start the school year. It's a wonderful project, and Cheverly Community Market is happy to welcome them to the Market this Saturday. They'll be collecting supplies...read below for the details. Ann explained the drive perfectly on Cheverly Exchange:

I know it’s the middle of summer, and not too many people are thinking about “Back-to-School” supplies, but I just wanted to let you all know that I will be starting up the Supplies for Spellman project shortly. There are many children who attend Spellman who cannot afford to get all the stuff they need to start off the year RIGHT! This will be the third year that I’d like to ask the Cheverly community to help me outfit 32 children with the notebooks, pencils, rulers, backpacks as well as the fun stuff like Kleenex and hand soap that they are supposed to bring to school on Day 1.

Aimee Olivo, the new President of the Spellman PTA, has already compiled the long wish list, and Susan Holiday, the Principal, is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the goodies.

If you’re not familiar with how this works: There are eight grade levels (Pre-K through 6th grade) at Spellman. A list is made that has what four children in each grade would need. We’ll post the list each week, and keep track of the progress of the various items. I usually try to scour the ads for the best things to buy each week, so that we all take advantage of the bargains and don’t pay any more than is absolutely necessary for them. Lots of things will only cost 5 or 25 cents. Backpacks can be had for free with a rebate, or for very little if you hit the thrift store on a bargain day. Once the supplies are all at the school, Susan sets up a ‘store’ and each child that needs things, gets a grade appropriate list, and with a staff person, goes to the store and picks out all the things on the list. It is a beautiful sight to see a kid choose his favorite color ruler or a really neat backpack...

It has been many, many moons since I was in Elementary School (Rhame Avenue Elementary School in East Rockaway, New York - in case you wanted to know my alma-mater!), but I still remember the joy of the first day of school and getting new crayons, a blue denim 3-ring binder and filler paper.

Every child should start school with that joy, that anticipation of good things to come.

Supplies Needed (number refers to quantity still needed as of 7/25)
bookbag (no wheels) 1
composition notebook (B&W) 60
composition notebook (no color specified) 44
8 count box of crayons 2
16 count box of crayons 4
24 count pack of crayons 10
box of facial tissues (Kleenex) 60
roll of paper towels 44
bottle of liquid hand soap (pump) 52
bottle of hand sanitizer 2
bottle of Clorox Anywhere spray 4
Clorox or Lysol disinfecting wipes 26
glue sticks 34
Scissors (for older grades, assume sharp tip is okay) 8
large eraser 32
pocket folder (4th grade requests blue, red, orange, green) 114
Box of gallon size Ziploc bags 8
Box of sandwich size Ziploc bags 8
Pack of dry erase markers 6
School box (is this a pencil box??) 4
Ruler with centimeters and inches 12
Soft-side pencil pouch (not a box) 12
Pencil sharpener with cover 22
Bottle of glue 4
Colored pencils (optional for 3rd grade) 12
1.5-2 inch binders with pockets inside front and back covers 12
200 count package of wide ruled loose-leaf paper 27
set of 8 count binder dividers 8
Package of hole reinforcers 4
Book covers 8
Cloth stretchable book covers 24
Flashdrive 4
Black pencils 8
Pack of markers 4
Intermediate Thesaurus 4

Can you purchase a notebook? Erasers or pencils? Some glue? Show the kids at Spellman how much Cheverly cares (we know you care a lot!) and bring your donations to the Market this Saturday! And thank you!

Update: Thanks to a donation of 2,300 pencils, one more item is stricken from the list!
image from 1st Day School Supplies