On Wednesday morning, some Lee County teachers showed up before dawn to wait on lawn chairs for a giveaway of supplies sponsored by the United Way and the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools.<\/p>\n
Yohan Arana of the Foundation for Lee County Schools was on hand in downtown Fort Myers to help load supplies into cars.<\/p>\n
“People have been stationed out here since about four or five in the morning, waiting until our event opened up at 7:30 to collect a bunch of materials and resources here for their classrooms,” he said.<\/p>\n
This was a joint effort of the foundation and the United Way of Lee, Hendry and Glades counties to hand out almost $200,000 worth of supplies.<\/p>\n
“We had a lot of bulletin boards, we had chairs, filing cabinets, Christmas and Easter, all sorts of stuff that they can use for their classroom, that teachers can use for their classroom.<\/p>\n
“A lot of it was donated to us from United Way. Some other donations are just stuff we’ve had here from organizations and individuals who have decided to donate.<\/p>\n
“And so we’ve had this stuff stored away for a while and we thought, you know, let’s make a day where we can try to give most of it away to all the teachers that need it.”<\/p>\n
Eric Negroni, a Mariner High School band director, was one of about 300 teachers who showed up.<\/p>\n
“We’re here getting supplies for the classroom to start the new year off right.
Office supplies, there’s a lot of like festive decorations for holidays and stuff like that.
And there’s also some furniture for the classroom that’s nice, like filing cabinets, tables, chairs.”<\/p>\n
Without giveaways like this, teachers often use their own money to furnish their classrooms. <\/p>\n