crossthreaded

It’s definitely that time of year again. The summer’s winding down, and kids are trying to prepare themselves for the un-fun thought of heading back to school for another year of school.

For many refugee kids who arrived in the United States this summer, though, this might be the first time they have set foot in school, due possibly to their young age, or maybe to the fact that they’ve not had the resources to go. Supplies and uniforms are expensive; maybe the camp they were in only sporadically had a teacher or two for dozens of kids; violence may have interrupted their education one or more times as well. Now, it’s different. They are safe, and school is required.

Many of them love going to school and look forward to it. However, with the severe cut backs that many resettlement agencies are seeing in funding, it is not possible to purchase school supplies for the kids they resettle. They are not required by law to do so, but it’s a nice extra that they might normally be able to handle. If the resettlement agency doesn’t supply them, then the schools have to. They don’t necessarily have the money or the donations of supplies to handle supplying every item for every new refugee child either.

So, as you’re buying school supplies for your own children, consider, picking up an extra bottle of glue or box of crayons. See if you can get other parents to do the same and prepare a box of donated school supplies to donate to your local refugee resettlement agency. Call them first to see what the numbers, ages, and genders of kids going to school for the first time this year are, and maybe you can organize a donation drive where a person sponsors one child and buys school supplies for that child.