Puerto Rico School Supplies

Our Ballston Spa Central School District Transportation Department, in Ballston Spa, New York, is on a mission. We are a suburban school district in upstate New York. Our department has about 86 staff members. These members have always been generous with their time and money when it comes to people in need. Hurricane Maria has inspired us to come to the aid of Escuela Segundo Manuel Ruiz Ganda in Areciba Pueblo, Puerto Rico.  We have a bus driver, Cesar, whose sister, Jeanibell, teaches in this K-9 school. When Maria hit, the school building was left standing, but the children lost everything. So our drivers, attendants, mechanics, and office staff are busy collecting the supplies needed to get a classroom back up and running and to get the students back to stability and routine of their classroom.  Each week, a request list is posted near the sign-in window in the bus garage. A donation box is under the list. When the box is filled, we ship many flat-rate boxes (48 so far) to Jeanibell. Whatever she does not need in her own classroom will be shared with the rest of the school. To date, the boxes have been filled with basic classroom supplies: pencils, pens, markers, erasers, paper, notebooks, etc. We were able to send over 1,000 pencils! With shipping approximately 9 boxes per week, the postage is very costly. To date, we are $250 shy of the current shipping bill. We would like to be able to continue this collection process for as long as it takes to get this school running. Our department consists of people with varying abilities to support a project of this magnitude. Thanks you in advance for your contribution. The monies will go toward shipping and buying more supplies.