CB East senior, club members donate supplies to Philly schools

Full bookshelves, stocked pencil cases, and many other essentials seem like basics, but to many schools in our area, they are considered luxuries. My name is Marissa Ballew, I am a senior at Central Bucks High School East, and I am working to bridge this gap in our education system through a club at my school called Education 4 Everyone.
As a Girl Scout in Troop 22135, I am in the process of earning my Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts. When looking for project ideas, my sister, Lauren Ballew, told me about a school she had recently been to. Lauren goes to Temple University and is a part of the program Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Upon picking up her “Little Sister” from a local elementary school, she saw that their school library was one, half-empty bookshelf. Many of us in Bucks County think of elementary school libraries as walls of books, tables of computers, and an on-staff librarian; however, this is inaccurate for many of our Philadelphia schools.
Most schools within the School District of Philadelphia are severely underfunded. Only seven certified librarians work within the district, and about 12 other school libraries run with volunteers. With 339 schools in the district, they have the worst school librarian ratio in the nation. However, I believe that all children deserve equal education.
I decided to take on this cause for my Gold Award, and I am carrying out my project through a club at East called Education 4 Everyone. I founded Education 4 Everyone my sophomore year, right before COVID-19 hit our area. We had one meeting before my school shut down. Fortunately for me, everyone who had signed up was so enthusiastic and continued their membership the following school year, even though meetings had to be online.

We generally meet every two to three weeks, and our meeting agenda varies every time. Some meetings, we’ll spend the entire time brainstorming ideas for what we can offer schools or how we can structure collections. Other meetings, every one of us will contact three schools and ask if they are in need of any supplies. Last year, we were able to have one in-person meeting where we assembled supply kits for the Chester A. Arthur Elementary School. I am beyond grateful for such an active team.
So far, we have worked with two schools in Philadelphia. For our first drive, we donated 12 bags filled with a wide range of supplies to the Dr. Ethel Allen Elementary School. For our second drive, we donated 60 supply kits and 20 calculators to the Chester A. Arthur Elementary School. Each supply kit included 1 folder, one notebook, one pack of colored pencils, one pack of crayons, one pencil case, two glue sticks, one pair of scissors, one eraser, three No. 2 pencils, and a handwritten good luck letter. This was our most successful project yet, and I was ecstatic that we could buy as large of an item as a complete set of calculators.
Education 4 Everyone has made many great strides, and we hope to make even more. Our next club meeting is Wednesday, Oct. 13, and we will be contacting schools so we can plan our next project.
Community involvement has been our biggest supporter so far. If you are interested in contributing to this cause, please follow @education.4everyone on Instagram for updates on supplies that we are collecting. If you are interested in benefiting from this cause or have any questions, please reach out to me via marissa.b123@yahoo.com and I will get back to you right away.

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