By Laura Hipshire
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Thanks to the generosity of residents and staff members at Henry Ford Village hundreds of kids will start school this year with full backpacks.

For the seventh year in a row the Henry Ford Village Protestant Women’s Guild has sponsored a school supply drive; all donations go to metro Detroit-area children in need.

Volunteers there have been collecting monetary donations and school supplies since July.

Goal this year is to triple donations
“It’s been going wonderfully,” says volunteer Corinne O’Brien, who moved to Henry Ford Village from Dearborn Heights. When the drive started in 2001 the guild donated 110 packages; this year they’re going for more than 300.

As of August 1 they’ve assembled and donated more than 100 packages. The supplies include crayons, rulers, scissors, glue, pocket folders, notebooks, erasers, #2 pencils, colored paper, stickers, pencil sharpeners, and pens.

“We try to get things on sale,” O’Brien says. “A lot of places have a limit on the number of items you can get for the sale price. We talk to the managers to see if we can get more than the limit, and most of them cooperate.”

Teamwork gets the job done
Once the items are gathered, volunteers form an assembly line and package items into three-gallon ziptop bags. Once 100 packages are prepared the guild delivers them to the World Medical Relief group in Detroit to be distributed to inner-city children.

O’Brien says she can “hardly walk in her living room,” since the supplies are being dropped off at her apartment home to be packaged. She says  volunteering and giving to the children brings her a feeling of fulfillment and generosity.

“We are really pleased with the progress,” O’Brien says. “The residents and staff members at Henry Ford Village are so generous.”