By Natalie Faulkenberry with KCBD
Published: Aug. 5, 2022 at 4:44 PM CDT
LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – This week, the Lubbock Area United Way is helping community partners with school supplies.
United Way works with more than 23 local nonprofits to support the Lubbock community all year long. This year it decided to spend leftover grant money to open a school supply shop for the families of nonprofit employees.
Amanda McAfee, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, says, “We ended up buying over 13,500 different school supplies. We have crayons, pencils, glue, notebooks, and all the things.”
Many charity employees work on a small pay scale, McAfee says. Many families do not have the extra funds to spend on school supplies, so the shop was just a small way to thank them.
Amanda McAfee says, “A lot of our community partners are employees. They work so hard all year-round taking care of people in the community and it is a job they chose. They chose to work at a nonprofit as opposed to go to a for-profit where they could be making more.”
Employees across the 23 nonprofits help support 137,000 people across the South Plains each year.
McAfee says inflation is making it even more important for the community to support one another.
Amanda McAfee says, “We all need help, we have seen that, especially in the last couple of years. It takes a community and that community coming together, so that’s really what this is kind of about.”
The school supply shop will be open to community partner employees until next Tuesday. Any leftover school supplies will go to local school districts for students and teachers to use this fall.
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