Last year, Sonoma’s Global Heart collected $170 in addition to 167 complete school supply kits in partnership with the Mennonite Central Committee. MCC is a nonprofit relief organization who added them to over 89,900 shipped to Jordan, Syria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon and Haiti among other places.
This year, school supplies collected in Sonoma will go to Bangladesh and Syria. School supplies can make all of the difference in a child’s future. The school kits, which are received with high praise from students and teachers, are distributed in orphanages, children’s shelters, schools for disabled children and refugee camps. Notebooks and pencils are treasures for families who struggle to afford basic school supplies. School kits often are requested after disasters and help bring normalcy to children whose families have been forced to flee their homes. Global Heart is collecting the school kits now through Sept. 1.
Each school kit consists of a drawstring bag filled with specific supplies. People who want to help can get empty bags at Global Heart, fill them and return them or simply take the supplies to the store. Each kit must contain: four spiral notebooks 8.5 x 10.5-inch 70-80 pages each, four unsharpened #2 pencils, one 12-inch plastic ruler with inch and metric scales, one large pencil eraser and one box of 12 to 24 colored pencils (no crayons).
All kits must have the same contents so when they are distributed, each child gets the same things.
If anyone wishes to sew the bags themselves, they may pick up a pattern and list of supplies needed at Global Heart.
School kits, supplies or cash donations must be dropped off at Global Heart by Friday, Sept. 1, during store hours. Organizers will be driving the kits to the West Coast operation of the Mennonite Central Committee the next day. The store is open seven days a week, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call 939-2847 or drop by the store at 423 First St. W., on the Plaza.
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