There are certain traditions we look forward to at the start of each school year: seeing yellow school buses on the road. Watching Friday night football games. And, at Temple Health, collecting backpacks and binders and crayons for our annual School Supply Drives. These drives, which are held at TUH-Main, Episcopal, and Jeanes Campuses, set local students up for success by making sure they start the school year with the essentials.
“We filled a two and a half vans with school supplies, and brought them to Bethune and Kenderton Elementary Schools,” says Senior HR Coordinator Dawn Stevenson, who organized the Main Campus drive. “The students were so excited! At Bethune, there were two little boys who’d had to use their school bags from last year, and who had told their school nurse—who used to work here at Temple—that they were hoping to get new backpacks. She told them that they were definitely going to get them, so when we showed up with the backpacks, they were thrilled!”
Senior HR Coordinator Shawana Singletary-Gay, who coordinated the Episcopal School Supply Drive, also delivered backpacks, folders, and notebooks to local students. Episcopal sent their supplies to Henry A. Brown Elementary School, which is just around the corner from the campus.
“This year, we had more donations than ever,” Singletary-Gay says. “There were so many that, when we dropped them off, our volunteers had to ride in a separate car. Our Nursing and HR teams contributed a lot, and we had a raffle in which, if you brought in five items we needed, you got one raffle ticket. That got people excited, and made them want to participate in the drive.”
Monica Kolb, the TUH-Jeanes Campus Chaplain, organized its School Supply Drive, which brought in an impressive 408 items. Those supplies were sent to Food for Hope food pantry at Memorial Presbyterian Church of Fox Chase, which serves the Jeanes and Fox Chase Cancer Center community.
“We wanted to make sure that families coming in for food would also be able to pick up school supplies for their children,” Kolb says. Having spent several years as a teacher, Kolb remembers the excitement of the start of the school year, and the thrill of opening a pack of freshly-sharpened colored pencils or getting a whiff of ‘crayon scent.’ “It’s one of the joys of starting school—and it makes it a lot more fun when you have some new things to take with you.”