STRONG STARTS FOR LORAIN COUNTY STUDENTS

COLLECT. SORT. DELIVER. CREATES A STRONG START FOR LORAIN COUNTY STUDENTS

Every child deserves to begin the school year with the tools they need to learn, participate, and succeed. A backpack full of notebooks, pencils, folders, crayons, and other basic supplies may seem simple, but for families facing financial challenges, those items can represent a significant barrier to a successful start.  That is why United Way of Greater Lorain County is proud to continue our Collect. Sort. Deliver. School Supplies Drive, a community-wide effort designed to ensure elementary students have access to the supplies they need most.

Throughout Lorain County, we celebrate the many back-to-school events and backpack giveaways that help families prepare for a new school year. These efforts are important, and they make a meaningful difference. At United Way, however, we also recognize that there is an unmet need: not every family is able to attend a giveaway event. Work schedules, transportation challenges, family responsibilities, and other barriers can make accessing these resources difficult, often for the families who need them most. Our strategy is designed to help close that gap.

By working directly with all 15 public school districts in Lorain County, United Way of Greater Lorain County distributes the supplies to the districts themselves. This approach allows schools to help identify where the need is greatest and put supplies into the hands of students who may otherwise go without. This year, the impact was truly collective. More than 40 collection sites, including local businesses, libraries, and churches, joined the effort to collect school supplies, and individual donors were also able to purchase items online and have them shipped directly to United Way. Together, we collected, sorted, and delivered more than 22,000 school supplies, filling more than 108 boxes for local students.

Getting those supplies from collection bins to classrooms is no small task, and it takes coordinating the efforts of the community. First, volunteers gathered for a Cocktail Hour for a Cause event to sort thousands of donated supplies. A second group of staff and volunteers carefully inventoried the items. Then, a third group of volunteers boxed the supplies for each district using a share formula that considers both student enrollment and the number of students living at or below the federal poverty level in each district. 

We are especially grateful to our sponsor, Brightspeed Fiber Internet, whose partnership helped us make this year's drive possible. We also thank every collection site, donor, and volunteer who stepped up to turn generosity into action. Finally, with the generous help of the Rudolph Libbe Group, their box truck, and two apprentices, we were able to deliver supplies to all 15 public school districts and wish our local students, educators, and school communities the very best for the year ahead.

The Collect Sort Deliver School Supplies initiative is a great example of the collective impact of United Way. But it is only possible because of all of us. From the business that hosted a collection bin to the donor who ordered a box of pencils online; from the volunteer who sorted supplies to the partner who helped deliver them - every contribution played a role. United is the way to remove barriers to a child's education, creating stronger opportunities not just for individual students, but for our entire community.