Union, others help with school supplies

Each year Melissa Plenty worries about how to outfit her children with the supplies needed to head back to school.

And this year is no different for the mother of three. Plenty, 31, estimates her family needs about $600 to buy supplies and clothes for her kindergartner, second-grader and fourth-grader to head to Spokane’s Linwood Elementary School.

“I was calling the school, saying I couldn’t afford it all,” Plenty said. “We just can’t with the high price of gas and other bills.”

Luckily, a generous donation of school supplies from a local carpenters union will ease some of the family’s burden.

Like Plenty, many area families rely on donations by local business and community agencies to help with back-to-school shopping – especially in recent years, as schools and teachers have turned to parents to help fill the gap left by shrinking classroom budgets.

Plenty’s three children received new backpacks full of pencils, paper, folders and other supplies Tuesday during a school-supply distribution at Linwood. The Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters donated 400 backpacks full of supplies.

“It’s really a blessing,” Plenty said.

Families of schoolchildren are now asked to supply beyond the basics. On some lists this year: boxes of Kleenex, hand sanitizer, disposable cameras and Ziploc bags. Some schools ask parents to buy certain name-brand items, such as only Elmer’s glue or Mead composition books, instead of the cheaper generic brands.

One Spokane Valley elementary school is asking each student to provide a ream of copy paper.

“Everybody’s budget is getting tighter. I have to be a lot more frugal with my supplies,” said Steve Barnes, the principal at Holmes Elementary School in Spokane.

With 90 percent of Holmes students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches – often used as a measure of a school’s poverty – the school receives many offers for school-supply donations from area businesses, Barnes said. This year the Rotary Club North donated $2,000 in supplies to students.

“There’s nothing like a student who is able to start the school year with their own backpack and all the school supplies and new clothes. … That’s what every kid dreams for,” Barnes said. “When our kids are unable to do that, it’s just devastating.”

A supply drive in Sandpoint’s Lake Pend Oreille School District will serve about 850 kids with $31,000 in donations from individuals and businesses, said Kathy Andruzak of Angels Over Sandpoint, the community group organizing the drive.

Each low-income student gets a sack with his or her name on it, filled with supplies, before selecting a new backpack. That happens Thursday at Farmin-Stidwell Elementary for those who have already been screened.

“They’re going to be just like everyone else in their classroom,” Andruzak said.

In its sixth year, the supply drive has grown each year and is looking to offer more expensive items, such as scientific calculators. And given the ballooning size of school supply lists, the growth is simply keeping up with demand.

“The lists get longer and longer,” Andruzak said. “It’s gotten more and more precise every year.”

Noting the increased burden on parents, as well as teachers who often spend their own money on supplies for their classrooms, the Adams Elementary School Parent-Teacher-Student Organization held a fundraiser to pay for some supplies at every grade level. The Central Valley school in Spokane Valley sells popcorn every Friday for 25 to 50 cents to pay for the supplies.

“We wanted to make sure that everybody starts out school with pretty much the same thing,” said PTSA President Liz Lee. While the PTSA pays for most of the basics, parents are still asked to pay for snacks, tissue, baby wipes or bottles of hand soap.

But some don’t mind.

“I’d rather the kids have the stuff,” said Kristi Archer, who was shopping for school supplies with her 6-year-old son Brenden at a north Spokane Target store on Tuesday. Her son attends Woodridge Elementary School. “Schools are cutting back so much already, at least this way I know he will have what he needs.”