UPS makes supplies donation to North Drive
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on August 17, 2017 5:50 AM
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News-Argus/JOEY PITCHFORD
North Drive Elementary Principal Charlenna Bennett-Carter speaks with Dee Hurley-Holmes and Angie Hedgepeth after UPS donated 50 bookbags full of supplies to the school.
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News-Argus/JOEY PITCHFORD
North Drive Principal Charlenna Bennett-Carter, center, poses with Angie Hedgepeth, left, and Dee Hurley-Holmes, both from UPS.
In North Drive Elementary principal Charlenna Bennett-Carter's experience, coming to school without basic supplies can demoralize a student and ruin the student's entire day.
For students at North Drive, this figures to be less of a problem this year, after the UPS of Goldsboro donated 50 bookbags filled with school supplies to the school Wednesday afternoon.
The donation came after around two months of collection by UPS employees, who began gathering supplies in early June. Dee Hurley-Holmes, business manager for UPS, said she was directed to North Drive by Goldsboro Community Relations Manager Shycole Simpson-Carter.
"I got up with Shycole and asked her where we were needed," she said. "She pointed us this way."
Hurley-Holmes said the supplies and bags added up to around $1,200. The bags were full of notebooks, folders, pencils, crayons and a litany of other elementary school essentials.
The school will distribute the backpacks based on need, Bennett-Carter said, and will go a long way in helping students achieve.
"Because we do serve kids from all of the housing projects, this is one less hardship parents will have to deal with," she said. "It's powerful. You know when you're ill-prepared, even a kindergartner knows when they're ill-prepared, and that can ruin your entire day."
Bennett-Carter has been at North Drive for 25 years, beginning as a teacher and working her way up to principal.
In that time, she has seen the impact of giving kids the materials they need to learn. Not having school supplies can cause kids to "check out" of a school day, Bennett-Carter said, because they know going in that they do not have the right tools to learn. While the school does have a supply closet to fill in the gaps, money is always tight and help is always appreciated.
UPS employees led by Hurley-Holmes wheeled the backpacks into the school stacked high on a cart. Extra supplies sat in a box, "overflow," as Hurley-Holmes called it. Bennett-Carter said the extra supplies could fill another set of donated bookbags.
Being able to provide such a large amount of supplies to kids will help the school start the year off strong, she said. Standing in her office after the UPS employees left, Bennett-Carter was nearly at a loss for words.
"I don't know what I expected, but this is ..." she said, trailing off for a moment as she looked at the pile of supplies. "I'm just overwhelmed."