A few weeks ago I blogged, “#SentryOneServes: Giving Back” to discuss some of the volunteering and charity efforts at SentryOne. One of the things mentioned was the upcoming school supplies drive for Classroom Central. We completed the drive last week and have some exciting results to share!
The Cause
Classroom Central is a Charlotte area organization which helps students and teachers in high-poverty schools. They provide essential school supplies to schools and students in need.
The video explains how great the need is for school supplies in the Charlotte area. Many people might not realize how much poverty impacts the students and schools in this particular region.
The Challenge
We broke the company into four teams and asked them to come up with creative team names, mascots, and of course donations! We assigned a points system to needed supplies and gave everyone two weeks to meet the challenge. At the midway point we had a team spirit day for everyone to unveil their creativity and enthusiasm.
Some team spirit! Missy Kelly (Finance), Nick Harshbarger (Business Development), and Adam Dunne (Sales) 
One of the team mascots; drawn by Brandon Young (Engineering)
The Results
At the end of two weeks, we had an impressive collection of supplies to donate. I’m proud of my company and coworkers for their passion, generosity, and effort in this challenge. People pulled together looking for back-to-school sales and trying to include their friends/neighbors in donations. Remote employees participated in the creative fun and shipped supplies to the office.
A bountiful collection of classroom supplies!
#SentryOneServes Our Collection Summary
- 15,000 pages of copy paper
- 5,640 crayons
- 3,096 colored pencils
- 1,960 pencils
- 720 pens
- 416 notebooks
- 300 highlighters
- 17 bulletin boards
- And 902 other items including reading books, construction paper, markers, calculators, backpacks, geometry sets, hand soap, tissues, glue, notecards, etc.
We’re planning more events for this fall, looking forward to Giving Tuesday, and perhaps involving you in our charity efforts at some of the events we’re attending. Thanks again to everyone who helped us collect school supplies this summer at SentryOne and the user groups around the country.
