School Specialty Volunteers Help Kids Affected by Hurricane Katrina

When the news of the devastation caused by Katrina reached the associates at School Specialty (many of whom have family and friends in these areas) their immediate reaction was to take action. While they couldn't help those who were stranded, they gathered strength from each other, and realized that there were things that they could do to help the influx of survivors in their own cities and towns.

The announcement from Dave Vander Zanden, President and CEO of School Specialty, encouraged us to help where we could. He generously offered to pay us for the time we spent helping others, match monetary donations dollar for dollar, and encouraged associates to help the schools hit by the storm.

The staff immediately began planning bake sales, raffles, and whatever they could think of to help with monetary donations. Many began coordinating efforts in their local churches and communities to prepare food, clothing, and shelter for those in need. As the number of survivors grew, associates volunteered at local shelters by sorting clothing, serving food, holding babies so that mothers could rest for a few hours, reading to children, sometimes just listening to their stories and trying to comfort them.

Local school districts were contacted to find out how many displaced children were in their school and then volunteers worked seven days a week, and as many as 18 hours a day to get school resources and clothing into the hands of those who needed them. Some associates even traveled to the affected regions with chainsaws and care packages to help clean up the roadways so that more help could get to the people who needed it.

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Associates unload, sort through, and organize materials that were donated to local schools for students who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Customer Response —

Thank you so much for your generous donation of materials to our Community School. I teach first grade, and I was amazed to find so many wonderful things from you. I was able to get a couple of Big Books, writing paper, a math game, chart paper, and very cool graphing board with unifix cubes. I used the graph the very next day and I plan to read one of the Big Books next week. After reading the book, it will be placed in a center, and the kids read the Big Books all year. They love to play school and read the book to their "class" that they have assembled. Again, let me say how grateful I am for all this great stuff. I can assure you I will put it to good use!

Thanks,
Charlotte Wilkes

Thank you so much for donating so many materials to our Community School. I am the music teacher at two schools, and therefore, I always appreciate donations because it is hard to purchase materials for two schools. Again, thank you for your kindness.

Tiffany Little