SCHOOL KITS

As you shop for back-to-school supplies this summer, we invite you to collect school supplies for needy children around the world - primarily refugee and displaced children. We will provide you with a drawstring bag and invite you to fill it with the requisite supplies (listed at right). From here the kits will be delivered to Ten Thousand Villages' parent organization, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).

Each year, MCC sends out around 120,000 kits. Kits will be sent to places where conflict and famine persist, such as Iraq, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Jordan and Ukraine.

MCC school kits provide valuable supplies to school-age children; one kit is often shared by several students. Without the school kits, many children might only have a single notebook in which to cram their year's lessons. Students are careful in handling and using the supplies; in some schools, students must return a pencil stub in order to receive a new pencil.

Here in Canada, families and school groups have found the hands-on aspect of shopping for the school supplies particularly meaningful. Some children even spend their own allowance money. They can't imagine being so poor that they have no paper.

Cash donations are also accepted and will be used by MCC to purchase supplies to put together kits. Online donations can be made at the MCC website.

"It is impossible to describe the joy and enthusiasm of the children lining up to receive their kits." - Honduras

You can pick up a bag at either store to fill with supplies before returning it to the store by September 30. Alternatively you can bring the supplies to a store and place them in one of our bags, or you can make your own drawstring bag 28x40cm (11x16 inches). The supplies needed are:

- 4 spiral notebooks or notebooks with perforations (about 21.5cm x 27cm and 70-80 sheets each)
- 4 unsharpened pencils
- 1 ruler (flexible plastic; indicating both 30cm and 12")
- 1 box of coloured pencils (12 or 24)
- 1 large pencil eraser