Aurora churches to host school-supply giveaway

Aurora Methodists will hold a sixth annual school-supply giveaway on Saturday, Aug. 11. The event will be at Greenman Elementary School, 729 W. Galena Blvd., from 9 a.m. until supplies are distributed.

Students from Aurora schools are invited to get school supplies and backpacks.

The event is sponsored by Fourth Street United Methodist Church and Wesley UMC in Aurora. About 400 pupils received supplies during last year’s giveaway at Wesley UMC.

At this year’s event, parents or guardians may enroll children in Aurora Shalom Ministries’ Wednesday after-school program. The free program at Fourth Street UMC, 551 S. Fourth St., offers academic tutoring, group activities, refreshments and field trips.

Rich Brown, event coordinator and Wesley UMC member, said the giveaway is organized by Aurora churches and businesses that care about the education and health of local children.

“This is a community effort to give necessary school supplies to students that could not otherwise afford them,” Brown said.

“We care that kids should have the tools to learn with at school. We hope to give away backpacks of school supplies to students from all grades from the East and West Aurora school districts,” Brown said.

“We will purchase school supplies at local stores to keep the effort in Aurora,” Brown said. “Both the value of the supplies and monetary donations are tax deductible.”

He added that donations of cash and supplies are welcome.

School supplies needed are: book bags, backpacks, No. 2 lead pencils, calculators, two-pocket folders, three-prong folders with pockets, boxes of crayons (8-24 per box), scissors (rounded tip), glue sticks and bottled glue, washable and dry-erase markers, supply boxes, three-ring binders (1 in.), erasers (pink and pencil-top), spiral notebooks (wide and narrow-ruled), 12-inch rulers with metric measurements, yellow highlighters, index cards (ruled and plain), colored pencil set (12 or 24-count), clear sheet protectors, notebook filler paper, black and blue ink pens, Post-it notes (3 x 3 in.), small pencil sharpeners, and graph paper

For more information, call (630) 896-1033 or email info@schoolsupplygiveaway.org.