Crayons to Classrooms Delivers Supply Kits for Preble County Teachers

On Friday, September 27th, Crayons to Classrooms (C2C) passed out $44,262 in classroom kits to over 60 National Trail 1st-12th grade teachers during a new pilot delivery program in effort to provide free supplies to teachers at under-resourced schools in local counties. This “Pick-up Party” was designed to ensure that Preble County teachers don’t miss out on the opportunity to receive free school supplies due to distance.

A fall 2023 survey showed that only 31% of teachers in the National Trail School District traveled to shop at C2C’s store during the 2022-2023 school year, compared to much higher percentages from other districts. The time and distance it takes for these teachers to travel to C2C prevents them from receiving free core supplies, STEM items, office products, books, and more that the Teacher Resource Center offers.

“It is difficult for National Trail’s teachers to get to a shopping appointment after a long day teaching,” shares C2C’s Director of Programs, Carlye Rausch. “Through the delivery program, we were able to fulfill the need of getting school supplies in the hands of teachers who normally would have a difficult time participating in shopping due to distance. The event was a great success, and teachers continue to let us know how appreciative they are to receive supplies at their school.”

The classroom kits were filled with core school supplies needed for daily activities such as several notebooks, folders, pens, colored pencils, crayons, hundreds of pencils and more for each teacher to stock their classroom for their students in need. There were two different kinds of kits, an elementary kit and a middle/high school kit, to meet the needs for each level of learning.

CareSource and Henny Penny supported this Preble County pilot program by funding the distribution of classroom kits. Both organizations sent volunteers to the event to help run the event and take the classroom kits to each classroom for the teachers.