Equipped to Learn Campaign

“It was so gratifying to do something for this town, which had essentially been forgotten. Hurricane Katrina took such a toll on Bayou La Batre and residents’ livelihoods. They needed and deserved all the assistance we could offer them."

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, it devastated Bayou La Batre – a small seaport town in Southern Alabama. Because the nation was so focused on New Orleans and the Mississippi coast, Bayou La Batre was kind of left out, even though they needed just as much help. I came up with the ‘Building a Better Bayou’ project and presented it to the officers of the Alabama Retired Teachers Association, and it became our statewide project.

We adopted four schools in Bayou La Batre – the high school, the middle school, and two elementary schools – and asked each of them for a wish list. Then we reached out across the state for monetary and in-kind donations for the things they needed: jackets, socks, uniforms, books, and money for a new science lab.

The response was amazing. We collected donations worth more than $38,000! We even had enough books to donate some to the senior citizens in Bayou La Batre, whose library had been damaged. The middle school had asked for money for a new science lab, and we got to see it when it was finished. The children were so excited; you would’ve thought they were getting ready to go to the moon! We also helped deliver the clothes to children, which was wonderful to see. Even though they had lost so much they were still happy and so grateful.”

“We’re still continuing to contribute in a very meaningful way to the welfare of the students we so loved throughout our careers as educators."

The Montgomery County Public School Retirees Association approached the superintendent of schools to ask how we could continue to be contributing members and help the children for whom we’d dedicated our careers. When the kids go back to school they’re given a whole list of school supplies that they need for the school year. The superintendent suggested that we could put together a shoebox with a variety of school supplies that kindergarteners need to have at home to support their learning at school.

We started by fundraising and writing grants, and we offered our members a chance to have their name on a box as a sponsor for their donation. We receive donations from local members as well as those living all over the country. The community has also been remarkable – we get donations from corporate sponsors, and we have high school students who volunteer to pack the boxes as part of their community service hours.

Kids are required to attend a certain number of days of summer school to get a kit, and parents are invited on the last day to come to an in-service session where they are told how to best use the kits at home. The shoeboxes have school supplies and educational games, such as a set of 20 bottle caps to learn counting. We sort, wash, and bag almost 30,000 donated bottle caps for the toolkits! Two large retirement communities in the area, youth groups and hundreds of other individuals locally and in Pennsylvania and Virginia are thrilled to be a part of our project by collecting the caps year around for us.

We initially started a book drive where we asked high school students at each school to weed out their used elementary level books, and eventually started purchasing a brand new book for as many grade levels as we could. We’ve also started assembling backpacks of school supplies for homeless kids who aren’t getting a kindergarten toolkit.

Over the years, our ‘Toolkits, Books, and Backpacks Project’ has evolved into an unbelievable, absolutely fabulous success story. I feel like I’m helping the children in as meaningful of a way now as I did in my 35 years of teaching.”