Founded in 1999 by a local parent, the Schoolhouse Supplies mission remains the same: to support public education in the Portland area by providing free school supplies to students in need. We do this because we believe that every child deserves school supplies and has the right to a quality education regardless of their family’s income or racial/ethnic identity.
Our success and value comes from the ability to harness the incredible support and compassion from the community and transform it into tangible benefits for our schools. With the community’s support, we have distributed $30M in free school supplies and benefited hundreds of thousands of children. We partner with many local businesses to sponsor programs, host supply drives and involve employees as volunteers (100,000 hours and counting.) Thousands of individuals donate time, dollars, and new and gently used products to support local students.
Programs include the Free Store for Teachers, the Tools for Schools backpack program, and other initiatives serving students in over 75 school districts in Oregon and SW Washington, with preference given to Title 1 schools.