Sep 26, 2014 3 min read

McMURRAY – When Chrissy Seidling was cleaning out her son’s backpack earlier this year, she noticed many of the suggested school supplies it carried were unused or barely used..

That’s when she got the idea that students at Bower Hill Elementary School in Peters Township School District should collect the gently used supplies and donate them to an elementary school in Conyers, Ga., where her cousin is a teacher.

Most schools send out a school supplies list before the beginning of the school year for parents to purchase before the first day of classes. Supplies include pens, pencils, crayons, notebooks, scissors and, in some cases, tissues and hand sanitizer.

Seidling, the mother of two school-age sons, one in fifth grade and another in first grade at Bower Hill, said she learned through her cousin’s Facebook post that only one of her 20 students at Sims Elementary School in Rockdale County School District arrived at school with items from the suggested supply list. One other student had one notebook, but it was the wrong style. The remainder of the Sims students were unable to bring any of the supplies.

According to the website SchoolDigger.com, Sims Elementary has 518 students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Of those students, 73.7 percent receive a free or discounted lunch. In contrast, Bower Hill, according to the same website, has almost 760 students, and of those, just 3.2 percent receive a free or discounted lunch.

School supplies, such as glue sticks, crayons, markers, pencils and pens, were collected during Walk Through Night on Aug. 20, and again during Meet the Teachers sessions, Seidling said. The district sent out information about the collection in an email.

Along with friend and fellow parent Rachael Leonard, Seidling collected the items and on Aug. 29 packed three boxes full of school supplies. After Labor Day, she mailed the boxes along with two large boxes of new backpacks donated by a local business.

“I was overwhelmed by the response,” Seidling said. “When packing boxes with pens, it takes a lot to fill a box.”

Bower Hill Elementary School Principal Kelly Gustafson said the project was a good fit with the school’s ongoing service learning emphasis.

“This was a different way to look at service learning,” Gustafson said. “I thought we’d get just a little box, but it kept pouring in and we had to stop because we had to mail the boxes.”

Because of the success of the collection, Seidling said she will continue the program next school year.