School Supply Store

It started with one small idea and what seemed like a small need.  BV's chaplain, Ken Meissner, emailed Allison and I in early July about helping the Seneca kids get their school supplies this year. We knew there would be a need with that and put the idea in the back of our head.  Then, in a Bridge meeting in the first week of August we discussed what we should do.  Buy the kids their supplies? Have volunteers each take a child to go shopping? We ended up deciding to do something to empower parents to get their kids supplies - The Bridge School Supply Store.  Parents could bring their families to The Bridge office to pick out the school supplies their kids needed, either for a donation or for free.

To prepare for the event, Anne, Allison and I went to businesses asking if they would be willing to put up donation boxes where people could drop off school supplies.  Ken also put some boxes at BV, and the staff in Student Services there were EXTREMELY generous! We had donation boxes and Dollar General, BV Stationary, and Walgreens.

Walgreens also let us have volunteers in their store three days where we could ask shoppers to donate money or buy supplies there to donate to the School Supply Store.  From 11:00 am - 6:00 pm on August 9-11th we had people at the store talking to customers and raising awareness about the program.

Some people who donated heard about the program from us, but others had read about it in the newspaper advertisements or heard about it through word of mouth and came in specifically to donate supplies!

On the second two days of the event, Allison, Alberto, and I stood outside with our sign to raise awareness as well. Some of the Seneca kids even came to help us out!

 

 
The event was a great success! We filled almost 6 carts full of supplies and raised around $400 to purchase more supplies for the store. We never imagined we would get this much!

 

In addition to the donation boxes and Walgreens event, Lucas and I went around downtown to talk to businesses about what we were doing.  We had some very generous donators. Browns Shoe donated 400 pairs of shoes to be distributed at the store, PESO donated children's books, and a few of the banks donated both money and supplies.

Also, KAYL gave us some radio time to advertise a few days before the store opened.  Lucas was live both the AM and FM stations, and they had to play his ad more than once because so many people were calling in asking about  when and where the School Supply Store would be.  Overall, we had GREAT community support!

We sorted and stored the supplies at The Bridge office until the week before the event.

Sadly, Allison and I were at RA training for the set-up process, but Lucas, Anne, Jay, Nellie, and Renato worked hard to get the area next to the Bridge office ready.

The School Supplies Store was scheduled to go from 1:00-5:00 on Friday, August 19 and from 8:00-12:00 on Saturday, August 20th.  Allison and I were able to come from 12:00-1:00 on Friday during our lunch break and we saw about 50 families come in.  We went back to RA training praising God for what he was doing through this program!

 

We had each family register as they came in.  We also had information about The Bridge's other programs available and will follow up with those who were interested in things such as English Classes, the after school program, the Food Program, or the new HopeRISE program.  This was a great way to reach out to families we haven't made connections with yet in the community.

I never thought such a small idea would have such a great impact.  We ran out of supplies a few times, but God always provided for what we needed! After seeing around 150 families served, I am amazed at the way God brought so many people to this event. I hope He will use the School Supply Store as a way to bring more people to Him - that people can see the love in the Storm Lake community, know that it is God's doing, and give glory to Him.