St. Margaret's House seeks items for back-to-school supply drive for its guests

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- St. Margaret’s House is accepting school supplies for the upcoming school year!

It's taking in supplies to help families with kids from kindergarten to college.

Since Monday, organizers say they’ve already seen a good number of donations but are still in need of more items.

St. Margaret’s house hopes to fill up around 200 backpacks to send kids of all ages off to school with the appropriate supplies to set them up for success.

This includes supplies that they will need in and outside of the classroom.

Director of in-kind donations, Sandra Badur says these donations carry out St. Margaret’s mission of serving women and children in the community.

“By giving out school supplies at the start of the year, it really aligns with our mission of treating each woman and child with dignity and respect, so that children can go to school and have what they need to be successful, and not feel kind of out that they don’t have any folders or any markers or things like that they might need,” said Badur.

To fill up 200 backpacks, they’ll need more supplies but are most in need of more thin markers, colored pencils, mechanical pencils and large scissors.

The full list can be found here.

The day center works to improve the lives of women and children in need and break barriers of isolation.

I met with two students from the University of Notre Dame who provide a safe place for these children to just be kids, while teaching them valuable lessons as part of the Summer Service-Learning Project.

Notre Dame student Mackenzie Mencias showed some off some of the students’ artwork that served as a learning experience. One craft project allowed the children to make crafts and learn about different cultures.

“We tried to teach them a little bit each day about the different continents. We’d play different music from them, talk about the food, different cultural aspects, and just tried to throw in a little teaching while we could,” said Mencias.

Women come to St. Margaret’s House to have a place that meets their immediate needs and provide a place of comfort and safety. Many mothers come in with children who need the same.

 Throughout the summer, St. Margaret’s House provides these kids with a place to explore their creativity and learn more about the world and some valuable lessons that set them up for success outside of the summer program.

Emily Patterson, another Summer Service-learning Project student shared a story of a girl heading off to school for the first time.

“There is a little five-year-old girl who is about to go into kindergarten, and I taught her with the glue, ‘use a dot, not a lot,’ and I’ve heard her repeat that every time we have the glue…”I hope she continues with that and learning that what they learned here is also applicable to school, so hopefully they can be like, ‘oh this reminds me of the summer children’s program.’”

You can help set these children up for success by donating school supplies from July 25 to July 29 at St. Margaret’s House from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.