This just in...

It's official--this is our worst year yet for the Kits for Kids Campaign.

At least, in terms of need, that is.

The Butler County School Supply Coalition has worked to provide school supply kits for children on free or reduced price school meals throughout the ten public school districts in Butler County. In years past, there have been about 15,000 students deemed eligible for the program, but even in the best years of the program, the Coalition has only been able to meet about half of the need.

For the 2010-2011 school year, I've been put in charge of organizing the Coalition and finding additional sources of funding. In order to demonstrate our needs in grant proposals, I have called each of the ten districts to get their most recent counts of students on free or reduced lunch. And today I made the final tally:

20,139 students in Butler County access free or reduced price lunch every day at school.

These students range in age from Kindergarten to 12th grade, and come from Hamilton, Middletown, Fairfield, Ross, Madison, Edgewood, Lakota, Talawanda, Monroe, and New Miami School Districts.

Did I mention there are 20, 139 kids in need this year?! In other words, 34.54% of all students enrolled in public school in the county live in a household whose income is less than 185% of federal poverty income guidelines. For a family of four, that's under $40,793 annually to qualify for reduced price, or $28,666 annually to qualify for free lunch. With unemployment at 10% in Butler County, we know that many families are barely able to keep up with their bills as the cost of living outpaces their incomes. By providing a free school supply kit to their kids, parents have one less thing to worry about covering in an already over-extended budget.

As compelling as it is, the project won't pay for itself. Historically, school supply kits in the past have cost about $5 a piece, but we might see a slight increase in pricing this year. Even if we can get the kits for $5 each, we would need to raise $100,695 to completely cover this project. As optimistic as I am, even I know that just isn't going to happen. The Coalition will be meeting next week to set a realistic goal for this year.

Meantime, these grants won't write themselves! I'll be back to let you know how you can help.