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Alicia Seitz

Donations from the School Supply Drive in the Student Union.

ServeAkron has kicked off the school year with their third annual school supply drive to help the local schools in Akron.

Assistant Director of Student Life Alison Doehring said, “As with every year of the drive we hope to provide our local children with the supplies they need to be successful this school year.”

ServeAkron organizes community service projects for UA students to become involved such as Project RISE.

RISE (Realizing Individual Strength through Education) is a federally funded program within the Akron Public Schools. They donate educational supplies to help the local schools. “Our goal this year was to support supplies of 75 children,” Doehring said.

Donations from UA students include a variety of supplies children would need to succeed in school. These supplies include boxes of crayons, book bags , folders, markers, pens, pencils, rulers, Kleenex, glue, paper and hand sanitizer were a few things on the list of school items needed.

“The supplies will benefit children at a variety of local schools,” Doehring said.

A big blue box sat at the doors of the Center for Service and Leadership where students could drop off school supplies from the first day of August to the last.

“The box was so full, we had already emptied [it] twice already during the first week of the drive,” UA senior Megan Vermillion said.

UA students donated colored pencils, crayons, glue, folders and much more to help the drive succeed.

With one week left for donations to be dropped off, “The drive is going well, we have collected about 200 items at this point in time,” Doehring said

In prior years the university community at UA has provided Project RISE with over 4,000 school supply items to local schools in Akron

Project RISE serves as a partner with the Department of Student Life at The University of Akron. Project RISE will be holding more events at UA during Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week in November.