GARDEN CITY, Idaho — The Assistance League of Boise is one step closer to donating much-needed school supplies to almost 100 Ada County Schools. On Thursday, the organization received truckloads of school supplies from Fred Meyer in Garden City. Around 15,000 students in need will benefit from the supply drive.
"If you think when you were a child, you always went to school and you had new stuff, and it always made you feel like you belonged and you were ready to learn," said Susan Oliver from the Assistance League of Boise. "And so the schools have asked us over the years to have children, or help us have children, ready for school and there's a lot of people who can't afford that."
Since 1989, the Assistance League of Boise's Operation School Supplies has worked every year with school districts to provide hundreds of thousands of students with supplies.
The donated supplies will be picked up by school coordinators starting on August 11, so everything is in place for the first day of school. Supplies will be taken directly to campuses and distributed to students throughout the year by teachers and counselors. Funding for Operation School Supplies comes from community donations, private contributions, grants and proceeds from the Assistance League Thrift Shop in Garden City.
Assistance League of Boise’s 2020 School Supply Donations, By the Numbers
** Figures Approximate **
- 105,000 crayons
- 77,000 colored pencils
- 26,000 pencils
- 24,000 binders and notebooks
- 23,000 markers
- 14,000 glue bottles and glue sticks
- 13,500 folders and dividers
- 10,000 pens
- 7,000 pencil boxes and zipper bags
- 5,000 earbuds
- 5,000 pairs of scissors
- 5,000 erasers
- 3,000 reams of paper
- 2,600 protractors, compasses and rulers
- 2,300 sets of watercolor paints
