Will you help? School Supplies for Puerto Rico

Students at our local University Park Elementary School (UPES) are working to collect basic school supplies for students at the Marco Sanchez Elementary School in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico – and they’d love your help! There’s more information below but in a nutshell, donations of the following school supplies to the front office at UPES by COB Wednesday (2/7) would be greatly appreciated:

• Safety scissors for children (rounded edges);
• Individual erasers;
• Individual pencil sharpeners;
• Dry erase marker sets for teachers; &
• Lined paper for lower elementary students.

According to Ms. Alyse Sanders, Parent Engagement Coordinator at UPES, “Ms. Neff will be personally bringing the most needed supplies to Puerto Rico this Friday (2/9), but we have another round of supplies going out shortly after.” So even if you can’t make it to the School by COB Wednesday, there’s still a chance for you to help with this effort!

From what I learned here “[The Marco Sanchez School] has no electricity and no operational generators, and is currently functioning at a reduced capacity. The school has no water supply and children must bring drinking water from home.”

UPES’s “Community Builders” – a group of students who come together with ideas and actions to help the community locally and globally – is coordinating this effort to begin helping by bringing donated school supplies to under the guidance and support of their fearless gym teacher, the beloved Ms. Neff!

Ms. Sanders also shared that a Solar Power for Puerto Rico, a community group in University Park, with the mission to help build small solar projects on the island, is working on getting solar power to Marco Sanchez Elementary School because it is still without electricity. So far, they’ve raised about $15,000 in their efforts to power three different buildings in Puerto Rico. 👏