Oakland Press Feature 8.16.10

Gift shop pitches in to equip kids for school

BERKLEY — As the laid back summer days come to an end, many families worry about finding the funds to purchase school supplies.

Inspired
to ease their woes, gift shop owner April McCrumb is offering a chance
for her customers and the public to donate school supplies for
low-income kids.

The gift gallery is giving out gourmet scented
pencils in exchange for new school supplies, which will be distributed
to local families in need. Anyone who wants to donate can put their
paper, pencils, pens, facial tissues, scissors, tape, glue, etc. into
the drop box at Catching Fireflies.

 

Danielle Delong holds some of the supplies collected so far at Catching Fireflies.

Remembering how fun it was to go shopping for new school supplies,
McCrumb thought it would be great to encourage kids to help pick out an
extra backpack or notebook for families that don’t have the luxury of
filling up a shopping cart of goods.

“Most of the school goods
we carry at our store are fun, but not essential, and we feel it’s
important to keep that in perspective,” McCrumb says. “We hope to fill
up over 10 of these boxes by the end of August.”

Catching
Fireflies will be collecting new backpacks, pencils, pens, markers,
highlighters, kid scissors, notebooks, folders, binders, rulers, thumb
drives, index cards, tissues, hand sanitizer, planners and pencil
pouches from the community during the month of August and will turn
them over to the Judson Center for distribution.

“Kids love our line of scented pencils, erasers and pens,” McCrumb said.

For more information, visit www.catchingfireflies.com, or stop by either store at 3117 W. 12 Mile in Berkley or 203 E. University Drive in downtown Rochester.

Store hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, until 8 p.m. Thursdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.