Two area charities are attempting to collect school supplies for needy children as the start of the 2012-2013 school year looms in the near future.
Catholic Charities Migration and Refugee Services at 2220 W. Market St., is holding a “Back to School Drive” this month to collect school supplies for refugee children.
Among the supplies needed are back packs, rulers, erasers, glue, scissors, pencils, pens, colored pencils, markers, folders, notebooks, wide-rule paper, and school uniform clothes — navy blue and khaki pants along with white and blue dress shirts or polo shirts. More information can be found online at https://cclou.org/wish-list/fall/.
In addition to the “back to school” items, Migration and Refugee Services continues to need household items for the refugee families resettling in the community. Items needed for the families are lamps, couches, sofas, kitchen tables and chairs, dressers and chests of drawers, full and twin sized beds — framed, mattresses, and boxsprings.
Other items needed include towels, bedclothes, wash cloths, pillows, clock radios, lamps, buckets, laundry baskets, brooms, dust pans, sponges, light bulbs, waste baskets, pots and pans and kitchen utensils.
The Sister Visitor Center at 2235 W. Market St. is also collecting back to school supplies. According to a news release from the center, last year Sister Visitor was able to serve 885 children. Ursuline Sister Michele Intravia, manager of operations at Sister Visitor, said in the release that “while we are not able to fulfill all of the children’s back to school needs, we try to at least provide them with the most important supplies to help them get started at school.”
The Sister Visitor Center is open from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, and from 9 a.m. to noon on Fridays. Back to school supplies needed include back packs, crayons (in eight, 16 or 24 packs), glue sticks or bottled glue, markers, notebooks, pens and pencils, pocket folders, rulers, small binders and writing paper.
