Back To School Community Outreach
The staff at Children's Dental Village believes that education for children is imperative and is aware that not all children arrive back to school with the needed items to help them succeed academically. This year, the team decided to have an in-office back-to-school drive that would fit into what seems to be our competitive nature. A contest to "Stuff the Backpack" was held: The owners of Children's Dental Village provided backpacks and the staff separated into teams to fill them. The guideline was to fill the backpacks as full as possible and spend just $10 per backpack. In the end, three teams took home prizes for the Heaviest Backpack, the backpack with the Most Items, and the backpack whose contents were closest to $10 without going over. After our friendly competition, all of the backpacks and the included supplies were donated to the Kyrene Family Resource Center. The center provides families in need access to resources which meet their particular needs whether it is food, clothing, shelter resources, medical support, legal support, resource referral and/or scholarships for afterschool programs. See the history of the center below and follow the link if you wish to help the center.
History of the Family Resource Center
In 1978 a secretary at the district office, observed an increase in the number of children from low income families. She learned of a family whose five children shared one pair of shoes among them and as a result, each child attended school just one day per week! She began gathering donations of gently used clothes and shoes to provide to this and other Kyrene families in need. She cleaned and repaired the clothes and began distributing them and other items from the trunk of her car. In 1986, another Kyrene secretary began assisting in this endeavor.
A few years later, and at the urging of a Kyrene Governing Board member, the two employees petitioned the Kyrene Schools Community Foundation to formally establish a program of assistance to poor families. In 1992, the Foundation officially established the Kyrene Kids Corner.
http://www.kyrenefoundation.org/makingadifference/kyreneresourcecenter.shtml
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