DOWAGIAC — Feed the Children, a national nonprofit, is continuing to help out schools in the area, including Dowagiac, by donating office supplies and by providing a teacher store.

Feed the Children, established in 1979 with a distribution center in Elkhart, Indiana, has been in a partnership with Dowagiac Union Schools for the past seven years. The latest donations made to the Dowagiac  school district have been office supplies.

In 2011, the Elkhart location of Feed the Children received a large amount of donations from Office Depot at its distribution center. To pass along the donations, a teacher store was started. All schools are preapproved based on need, said Darlene Anderson, the director of the Elkhart teacher store, a volunteer engagement supervisor and community liaison.

The teacher store looks at helping schools with the greatest need and looks at Title I schools, specifically public and charter schools. Once a requirement has been established, schools must have at least 50 percent or more students enrolled in free and reduced lunch program.

“Teachers love coming here. It’s free supplies and there is not a membership fee or anything,” Anderson said. “Everything that comes out of the store is the property of the school district. Teachers are just a way of getting it back to the school. They are right there in the classroom and know what their needs are.”

The school store is open from 2:30 to 4:40 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Teachers can come and shop once a month. Once a school is approved for the program, a list of eligible teachers is sent over.

“We try to encourage teachers to come on a day that maybe they would have taken a half day off,” Anderson said.

Each month, teachers take between $200 to $300 out of the store. The store serves 48 school districts and about 14,000 teachers are approved through the program. The store is open to teachers from preapproved districts, including Brandywine Community Schools, Buchanan Community Schools, Cassopolis Public Schools, Edwardsburg Public Schools and Niles Community Schools.

For special projects or after school functions, administrators will sometimes ask for donations, Anderson said, which the school store works to fill. Anderson used copy paper as an example. If a school needed copy paper, and the teacher store had a pallet of copy paper, she could pull a proposal together and get the school the donation. A report at the end of each month is given to the 48 districts’ boards of education detailing a breakdown of donations. 

Anderson, who grew up going to Cassopolis Public Schools, began a career with Feed the Children in 2012 when the teacher store was first being opened. Previously, she worked for Elkhart Community Schools for 13 years. The position she currently holds was open three separate times. Ultimately, Anderson felt like she was being called to work for Feed the Children.

While the school store is a benefit to staff, it is also largely beneficial to students, Anderson said.

“Teachers do so much,” Anderson said. “In addition, the schools don’t have to take from their budgets. If we can provide those things directly to the schools then that is a huge amount of money the school is not having to spend. If they aren’t spending money on those items then they can use that money for things that are more educational and things that are going to enhance the students’ education.”

At the last two board of education meetings, Dowagiac Superintendent Jonathan Whan has recognized the donations of office supplies from Feed the Children.

“It’s not something new, but one thing we definitely wanted to do was take the time and recognize them for their support,” Whan said. “We have received furniture in the past and classroom materials. It’s individual items or bulk depending on what they have, and it’s been helpful. It’s a good organization.”

Through Anderson’s managing of the teacher store, she has learned about the struggles some teachers go through.

“I have made so many friends with the teachers that come in on a regular basis,” she said. “The teachers always tell us when they go back to school, the kids know they’ve been at the teacher school. It’s like Christmas for the students.”