Kids are heading back to the classrooms this week, and many teachers are putting the finishing touches on their classrooms.
Teachers at Russell Cave Elementary School are getting ready for the start of school. They took a mid-day break to get a big surprise from Quantrell Subaru.
The "Subaru Loves Learning" initiative donated boxes filled with markers, crayons, headphones, and much more. They donated a total of $12,500 worth of supplies and each teacher got a $500 voucher to get anything else they may need.
This isn’t the first time Subaru has donated to the school. This library was transformed with their help. They've donated flexible seating and interactive rugs. The school's librarian, Allie Dale, explains how donations helped purchase a ton of materials that get kids creative.
She says, "The kids have built dog houses, they’ve built elf traps, they’ve built all kinds of cool things with these."
Students bounce ideas off each other and create together in the school’s library. After nearly three decades in education, Dale says she's seen how this space has transformed students.
"Working together is a skill we need in life and creativity, those are job skills, collaboration and creativity, that are gonna make them hirable as adults and the fact that they get to practice that as students in the elementary school with all of these materials and the flexible seating, is just something that's gonna help them in the future,” says Dale.
Russell Cave Elementary School has 30 teachers and serves around 250 students. The school’s principal, Amber Catron, says when teachers and students have what they need, there's more room to succeed.
She says, "It alleviates having to worry about needing anything for your classroom or spending your own money. They really saw the need that the community has and picked up on that, and it just shows our teachers that they're valued and that their impact here every day makes a difference."
