The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Community Services holds school supply drive-through
Oberlin Community Services, 285 S. Professor St., did its part to help Oberlin City Schools students in need of school supplies by holding its Back-To-School Drive-Thru on Aug. 13.
“This is the fourth annual Jaqui Willis Backto-School Giveaway,” said Oberlin Community Services Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator Rosa Gadsden. “Because of COVID, we had to switch to the drive-thru method, so we had all people pre-registered.
“We have the bags already pre-made, and we had 75 children register for supplies. They will be stopping by throughout the event to collect the supplies.”
Gadsden said the bags have all the supplies students need for school.
“There is a book bag and pretty much every school supply that Oberlin required for their students,” she said. “Crayons, colored pencils, rulers, notebooks and pretty much everything else.
“I guess you could say the special item for this year was the individual whiteboards. Teachers requested that students have those because they will be remote, so the whiteboard is how they will show their answers and responses.
“We have the school supplies for each grade, and we specifically bought for each grade’s requirements.”
Gadsden said the Oberlin community helped out.
“We have lots of stuff, and we had some money donations to help out from folks,” she said. “I’ve been shopping all week. A lot of people donated cash.
“We had a lot of stuff shipped to us through Amazon, and for the other stuff, I went to Walmart and Target.
It took some navigating with the virus, but we were able to get everything together and packed for today.”
Margie Flood, executive director of Oberlin Community Services, said the event honors the efforts of Jaqui Willis.
“Jaqui Willis was a longtime, well-beloved Oberlin resident, and she loved the children,” Flood said. “Every year, she organized a back-to-school supply drivethru.
“She was also a devoted board member and volunteer with us. When she died a few years ago, some friends and members of the community got together with us to set up a Jaqui Willis Endowment Fund to allow us to continue this event in her honor and memory so all kids in Oberlin Schools will have what they need to have a successful year at school.”