News

Education may be the key to a bright future, but many children around the world don’t have access to the basic school supplies they need. Recently the community of Kidron, Ohio, did their part to make sure thousands of children won’t need to worry about these supplies.

At the third annual “Community School Kit Day,” local community members gathered in the parking lot of MCC Connections to work together to pack school kits for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). During the three-hour event on October 10, a total of 6,050 school kits were packed by the group of 95 people, over half of them being children.

“I enjoyed seeing the children being competitive among themselves or with their parents to see how fast they could assemble a kit,” said Bill Ressler, Material Resource Center Director at MCC Connections.

Part of the group was in charge of keeping the tables stocked with the bulk items, where others assembled the various pieces of the kits – four spiral notebooks, four pencils, a ruler, colored pencils and an eraser – in the draw-string bags. The rest of the group packed the finished kits into the corrugated boxes for shipping.

The items to make up the kits were purchased by MCC Connections, which received the funding from donations by individuals, Sunday School classes and small groups. A big part of those donations came from Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale, which raised $7,485 for the purchase of these supplies.

In addition to providing much-needed educational supplies, this fun, intergenerational event brought together people from throughout the community.

“A larger group working together creates a festive spirit,” said Ressler. “People came because the activity became a link for them to connect with and literally help thousands of children.”

School kits are MCC’s most-requested item, as they offer hope and a sense of normalcy for children in places like Iraq, Nicaragua, North Korea and even in poorly-funded schools in the United States and Canada. For more information, visit mcc.org/kits