From August 25 to September 5, Leadership’s Philanthropy Committee held a school supply drive in support of the Kids in Need Foundation. The Kids in Need Foundation is a charity with a long list of achievements: they have served approximately 7.7 million students and 333,169 teachers with their networks and programs that distribute supplies and resources, and also promote equal opportunities in schools.
Lindsay Webb-Peploe, leadership advisor and teacher, says that “Whenever you give students an opportunity to participate in an active service, I think it's a good thing. I don’t know that many students will participate in the wide variety of drives that we have, but I hope they’ll participate in one over the course of their time here at Campo.” She says all the events and drives are handled by the students in leadership, and that they decide what they want to do and what charities they want to support.
Junior Nora Lawrence, philanthropy board commissioner, mentions that these kinds of fundraisers are important because “Fundraisers help other people in need when we live in a pretty wealthy and fortunate community, where I feel like most people have the ability to give back and help others.”
Lawrence also brings up the fact that because it was the beginning of the year and because of that, it was hard to get people to donate since “Everyone’s actually using their school supplies…”. She also says that giving physical supplies instead of money is harder “…because people are less likely to bring the supplies where [with] money you can either donate online or bring cash.”
Unfortunately, the drive wasn’t as successful as everybody hoped. “This year it wasn’t super successful just because I feel like it’s the beginning of the school year and everyone’s actually using their school supplies,” Lawrence says.
Junior Alina Wang expresses the fact that “We’re a bougier school, we have more resources that could help others. We have more access to [supplies].” Wang said that she’d donate because she has lots of extra notebooks.
When asked about how Campo’s school values align with having fundraisers, Webb-Peploe says “I think that there is a real sense of trying to provide for the other students the same type of experience that people have here at Campolindo.” Webb Peploe finishes her statement by saying that she thinks that the students were driven by the organization’s mission to make sure that students have everything. Wang and Lawrence also had similar responses regarding the question.
