Tupelo law firm donates thousands of dollars in school supplies to classrooms across Northeast Mississippi

TUPELO, Miss. (WCBI) – A Tupelo law firm has donated thousands of dollars worth of school supplies to classrooms across the region to make sure students have everything they need when going back to school.

“I remember when I was a kid, there would always be the one kid that walked in with the big 64 Crayola box and everybody else had the other box,” says Richard Schwartz & Associates attorney Ray O’Neal. “But it’s good for everybody to have something. Everybody needs the tools to do their job and kids need crayons and glue and scissors and things like that.”

That’s what had O’Neal and others out stacking up boxes of pencils, glue sticks and hand sanitizer in Tupelo Wednesday morning as they delivered thousands of school supplies that Richard Schwartz & Associates is donating to the United Way of Northeast Mississippi. 

“There’s a scarcity of supplies in a lot of areas this year and that also extended to our school supplies,” says area United Way president Patti Parker. “We know that schools and our teachers often go into their own pockets and help provide school supplies for children and be able to afford those.”

The $3,000 to $5,000 worth of school supplies will go to more than 60 elementary schools throughout Tishomingo, Prentis, Pontotoc, Union, Itawamba, Monroe, Chickasaw and Lee counties.

“Our goal is to get kids off to a good start to know that people care about them in the community,” O’Neal says.

O’Neal says he and his colleagues wanted to take action to relieve some of the burden off teachers and allow students to focus on learning. 

“All those things help and people know that you care and kids know that people care for them and it does help,” he says.

United Way says they plan to start distributing the supplies to schools within the next week.  

“They will be sitting on ready when the students arrive with a supply closet full of school supplies that we have brought to their door.” 

O’Neal called on other area businesses to make similar donations to classrooms. 

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