Wellington Health and Rehab.

Security State Bank.

by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — With the advent of the USD 353 school year starting on August 18 and 19, parents are finding the pressure of paying for school supplies.

Two Wellington businesses have stepped up to the plate, by holding back-to-school supply drives for those children most in need (see school supply lists here🙂

Wellington Health and Rehab, a longterm healthcare facility on 1600 West Eighth Street and Security State Bank have initiated different type programs, but have the same goal in mind: making school more affordable for everyone.

Wellington Health and Rehab

For WHR, this will be the third consecutive year embarking on the “Footprints” project. Tami Klinedinst, executive director of WHR, introduced this project to Wellington when she moved here.

“We called it ‘Footprints’ because we felt we were imprinting on the lives of children,” Klinedinst said.

Since its inception, the program has grown tremendously, but has yet to peak. This year, WHR and volunteers have packed 78 backpacks from three of the four USD 353 elementary schools. This year 25 backpacks were made for Kennedy, 25 at Lincoln, and 18 at Eisenhower.

Workers at Wellington Health and Rehab as well as Wheat Capital Manor have been busy producing backpacks these past two weeks. 

Next year, the Footprints program will include Washington Elementary and have 100 backpacks to distribute to the four schools with children from kindergarten to fifth grade.

As one can imagine, such a project is a labor of love – and that means lots of labor, lots of love.

Klinedinst, who brought this project to Wellington after successfully initiating backpack programs elsewhere, said she usually starts the project in earnest in April. She first gathers donations from businesses. Wheat Capital Manor, for instance, was huge in not only donating supplies but labor.

Then Klinedinst goes to the elementary principals to determine what students are eligible for the backpacks.

“We don’t do any of that,” Klinedinst said about who gets the backpack. “We just get a list from the principals saying we need ‘x’ number of backpacks from ‘x’ number of students. Who gets the backpack is determined by the social workers at the school.”

Then comes the fun part for Klinedinst and her band of workers. Each school has different supply needs. So she mixes supplies for this school and that school or both or all three and then fills the packs for specific schools. Organization? Yeah, you have to have it.

“Obviously, we can’t get the big ticket supplies,” Klinedinst said. “But we can get the basics like paper, notebooks, pencils, glue — things like that.”

Klinedinst said then WHR residents do the packing.

“They are really excited about it,” Klinedinst said. “They enjoy having a project such as this.”

Last week, if you were at the nursing home, you could see a plethora of activity. And the packing was essentially done this week and delivered to the community schools.

Security State Bank

The Wellington bank at 101 North Washington and at the Wal-Mart branch, have been busy getting supplies in a different way — seeking items from the public with drop off boxes at their two locations.

Drop off box at Security State Bank.

“Several of us here at Security State Bank were chatting recently about school and school supplies and overall needs,” said Lindsey Daugherty, a company spokesperson. “We know, that as a community, we have families that aren’t as fortunate as some.”

Daugherty said even with the much welcomed addition of the Kansas Star Casino Card, many families needed that money for fees, shoes and socks. Before school supplies are bought, the money is gone.

“So our wonderful staff decided – let’s get some things and donate them — kind of a ‘feel good/paying it forward’ kind of thing,” Daugherty said. “Let’s stock up on supplies and donate them to our school.”

So SSB staff members have asked community members to drop off items at both of their locations through August 14 – which is next Friday.

Items needed include: notebooks/notebook paper, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, water colors, washable markers, dry-erase markers, rulers, glue/glue sticks, highlighters, backpacks, erasers, scissors, folders, binders, construction paper and kleenex.

“No donation is too small,” Daugherty said. “Let’s fill the box.”

Follow us on Twitter.