Reflecting on their own experiences, a group of Northern Virginia high schoolers have launched a community initiative to collect and distribute school supplies to kids who need them the most.
The project is called Generation Supply and Fairfax High School sophomore Cesar Carlos Aguilera founded the initiative last spring.
He described the group as focused on closing the school supply gap for economically disadvantaged kids.
“Academic excellence starts with the foundation,” Aguilera said. “If a student doesn’t have supplies, they’re not going to be able to engage in a lesson or engage in activities that can further improve their knowledge and therefore increase their academic excellence and performance.”
The group uses what is called a donor-recipient model. It organizes collection drives at local schools, then donates what’s collected to other schools in the area.
The donor school is Navy Elementary School, Aguilera said, and the recipient campuses include Providence, Brookfield and Graham Road elementary schools.
The group collects pencils, notebooks, folders, binders and more through two-to-four-week supply drives. Then, Generation Supply hands off what’s collected to school or family liaisons who ensure “the supplies and our work is going to the right people,” Aguilera said.
Fairfax High student Charlie Canuel, who attended Providence Elementary, said he got involved after seeing students who didn’t have consistent access to school supplies.
“I thought I’m at a point now in my life where I can start making an impact on my community,” Canuel said. “How can I change that?”
As of August, the group had collected about $2,000 in supplies, with the goal of reaching $10,000 worth of items. It’s also expanding its reach and has donated to other groups, including Apple Federal Credit Union and the D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
“I don’t want the amount of academic resources that a student has to be limiting their capability of doing well in school,” sophomore Isaac Roberts said. “My main motivation is just having to have everybody in our county just have the resources needed to do good.”
The impact, Aguilera said, can be felt at both the donor schools and the ones receiving the supplies.
By the time members of the Generation Supply team graduate high school, they’re hoping to have other chapters at other schools, inspiring other students to “believe that they can do something like this or helping them succeed and get toward their own dreams and their own goals,” Canuel said.
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