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Shopping spree excitement extends beyond teachers

Virginia Burroughs, Dayton resident and former Dayton City Schools teacher, writes a weekly Hereabouts column for the Dayton Neighbors section.

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By Virginia Burroughs, Staff Writer 3:45 PM Thursday, November 12, 2009

Picture winners of a store contest on a shopping spree, and that was the scene last month at the Crayons to Classroom store on Kuntz Road.

Selected schools in Montgomery County had been assigned dates, with shopping time after school from 3 to 6 p.m. When teachers from Edison Fairview Elementary School in Dayton went to the “store,” carts bumped into one another as teachers tried to check their lists against items on the shelves. All of the available 69 items were limited, such as five erasers, one large roll of paper, 20 hanging folders, etc. Teachers could be heard asking one another, or speaking out loud to themselves, “Where are the erasers? The crayons? The markers?”

Although she was laughing, Lori Warner, Edison’s kindergarten through third-grade intervention teacher, groaned at how she would get all the items from her overflowing cart into her car and then up to her second-floor classroom.

“The shopping experience was truly a wonderful experience and a blessing,” she said. “When I walked into Crayons to Classrooms, I felt like a little kid in a candy store. I was in complete shock and amazed at how many materials were donated and all of the items that we received.

Warner said the students were very excited to receive the much needed school supplies. She said her classroom had a pumpkin decorating contest, and the winners got to pick out prizes provided by the Crayons to Classrooms Program.

“The kids received backpacks, notebooks, crayons, model airplanes and much more,” she said.

“Materials provided help motivate the students to do their work and promote a positive school climate, and so far it is really working,” Warner said. “This has been a wonderful learning experience for the students. They have learned the lesson of kindness and appreciation.”

“My experience was great,” said Elois Henderson, sixth-grade teacher at Edison. “I saw so many things I needed and would not have the money or time to get. The calendars are being used as prizes and bulletin board pictures for geography. I am using some of the notebooks for students who seem to lose theirs once a week and as prizes.

“Many of my items are for prizes for students, and the arts supplies were right on time for classroom projects,” she said.

Other such “free stores” around the country inspired Dayton’s Crayons to Classrooms program, which opened its doors in January with the assistance of local business and foundation donors.

Debra Seger, the organization’s retail program manager, said the store “invites the neediest schools, identified by the number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunches. We start with schools that have the highest number of students who qualify (one Dayton school had 100 percent) and then go to the next highest” (down to 70 percent).

Seger said the store is serving 23 schools this year.

“The teachers get to come in once each semester,” she said. “It’s fun to watch their faces and know how happy they are, knowing that it’s all going to kids.”

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at (937) 276-4441 or vburroughs@woh.rr.com

HEREABOUTS virginia burroughs

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