VIDEO: School Pays for Supplies

MILLPORT, Ala. (WCBI) – As August comes closer, parents and students are preparing for the start of another school year.

For parents with more than one child, it can be a bit of an expense to pay for all of the supplies needed for an elementary, middle, or high school student.

South Lamar School in Millport has had some success with their budgetting, and for the second year the school will be buying all of the instruction based supplies for their students.

“What we do is our teachers, grade-level teachers, they go out and they purchase from various businesses or order school supplies for each individual grade level,” said principal Jason Williams.

All the school is asking for is an optional thirty dollar donation to the school, and it brings a relief to parents.

It’s something nearly every family prepares their budget for around this time buying school supplies, and residents appreciate the school’s help.

“It means a lot because there are a lot of parents that might have more than one or two children, and they can’t afford it. Then a lot of parents may be on fixed income, you know. Then you might have some parents with little or no income at all, so that’d be a great help to the kids,” said Millport resident, Martha Mitchell.

It’s not covering everything, just the basic instruction based supplies like crayons, pencils, binders, and paper to name a few.

Other items like backpacks and hand sanitizer would be up to the families to buy, but this offer from the school goes a long way.

“Some people might think a pencil or a sheet of paper don’t matter, but to me I believe a child wants a clean sheet of paper and a clean pencil. It will make their day brighter,” said Mitchell.

As long as the funding is available, this is something the school plans on doing every year.

The school does not profit from this in any way; it simply wants to provide for its students.

“We’ve had the monies available for the last couple of years, you know, so it’s benefiting the parents. As long as it’s available we’ll continue to do it,” said Williams.

Another benefit is that the teachers can buy all of these supplies in bulk from local businesses, another reason why this idea is so cost effective for both the school and the parents.