Hopelink’s Annual Campaign to Outfit Low-Income Kids with Tools for School Underway

The new school year is still several months away, but for thousands of local children in low-income families – including more than 2,000 in Shoreline – the carefree summer months will soon give way to another worry: whether they will be able to keep up in school without the tools they need to succeed. For these youth, whose parents struggle every day to make ends meet, essential school supplies can be vital to ensuring they are on equal footing with their peers when classes begin.

As part of its annual “Kids Need School Supplies” drive during the summer months, Hopelink is collecting school supplies to distribute to schoolchildren in low-income families to help ensure they come to school ready to learn.

Local donors – including companies, service organizations, churches and individuals – are banding together to collect monetary donations as well as a wide range of school supplies that will be distributed to eligible families in north and east King County.

In the Shoreline School District, more than one-in-four students (27 percent) qualify for their school’s free and reduced-cost lunch programs, which means that 2,299 Shoreline students may qualify to receive school supplies as well.

The Shoreline school supply drive is coordinated by the Back to School Consortium; a partnership that includes Hopelink, the City of Shoreline, Ronald United Methodist Church, The Works of Shoreline PTA Council, Shoreline School District and the Readiness to Learn Program, Shoreline Community Care, Center for Human Services, The Vineyard, Turning Point, and the Dale Turner YMCA.

Last year, Hopelink’s Kids Need School Supplies drive helped supply about 3,400 students throughout north and east King County with school supplies – including about 1,200 in Shoreline – and the goal this year is to outfit 5,000 youth in grades K-12.

As families continue to struggle to get back on their feet during the economic downturn, the drive helps ensure that parents won’t have to choose between putting food on the table and buying such things as pencils and notebook paper when school is back in session. It also will help ensure that kids in low-income families don’t lose ground in their effort to build a future beyond poverty.

Supplies particularly needed this year are:

• Large and small backpacks (no logos)
• Three-hole punched and lined filler paper
• College-ruled paper

• Printer paper
• Graph paper (in spiral notebooks)
• Spiral notebooks
• Folders
• 3 x 5 cards
• Colored pencils and red correcting pencils
• Markers
• Fine-tipped Sharpies
• Protractors
• Glue and glue sticks
• USB drives
• Scissors
• Rulers

For more information about making a donation of supplies or cash to purchase supplies, call Ashley Stokes at 425.897.3710 or email: astokes@hope-link.org. Donations also can be dropped off at the Hopelink center in Shoreline, at 15809 Westminster Way N., 206.440.7300.

Shoreline families in need of school supplies must register by August 17 with the Back to School Consortium at: http://www.btsconsortium.org/register.html, or contact the Hopelink Shoreline Center for assistance.