Donate school supplies to those in need

Those of you that know me or have been reading my blog for a long time, know that I am a pursuing a Masters in School Counseling. Given that, I've been spending a lot of time in a couple public schools in my area, getting on-site training and all that, but I've also been able to see how little some kids really do have. Both of the schools I've been placed in so far are not in particularly affluent areas, there are a lot of single parent (or some other form of guardian arrangement) situations and finances are extremely tight.

With the school year looming, for some parents there is now the problem of trying to find the money to buy all the supplies that their kids will need for school. If you're a parent, you've seen how long those lists have gotten over the years. Just for me, I remember what I needed in High School and to see lists now, it's like doubled in the past decade. It can be extremely rough for some parents who are barely making ends meet without the extra expense of all the school supplies/clothes/etc their kids will need.

Every year, Staples has a school supply donation drive where you can leave new, unused school supplies in the front of their store and they will be donated to families that can really use it (to find out more about the program, head over here to dosomething.org). I donated quite a bit last year and fully intend on doing more this year.

I ask, even if you have no need to buy school supplies, consider donating to the school supply drives in Staples as well as other drives that might be in your area (you can google "school supply donation") to really help those kids, not just the families but the kids, that really need it the most. Most of what I donate, I've gotten for free or for pennies during back to school sales. So I'm not sitting here saying I spend hundreds of dollars doing this and you don't have to either.

I highlighted back to school deals this morning that were 0.01 and $1 at Staples and Target also released coupons last week for school supplies. Today alone when I went to Target, I got two packs of pens and two packs of Sharpies for 0.04 for all four packs. All of them will go into my collection bag and will get dropped at Staples once I've filled it.

I know I don't post a lot of personal stuff on here, which is my choice, but this is something that is very near and dear to me. I am making a career out of being an educator/school counselor and really wanting to help kids succeed, but I've been there too. I grew up in a single-family household and there were times my Mom couldn't afford everything I needed either. So now that I'm an adult, I'm trying to give to kids in need like people did for my family when I was in school.

So this was just my "PSA" for today, but I really do hope that some of you reading this will take a couple dollars, if you can, (or even $0 if you can get it for free) and help out the kids in your area that really need it.