On Tuesday, Aug. 10, from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Clarkson Cafe, you can get a hot fudge sundae with all the trimmings for $1 or a school supply donation. The supplies will go to the annual Back-2-School distribution sponsored by the Sisters Together Omaha organization.
Sisters Together Omaha partners with UNMC’s Community Partnership in an ongoing effort to better serve the health needs of Omaha’s African American community.
Sisters Together is a self-help organization for minority women, which includes a walking club, exercise club, quilting club, nutritional cooking classes (last year the club published its own low-fat cook book) and is well-known for helping develop the self-esteem of numerous participants.
“We did our first school supplies distribution in 2001 and served 210 children,” said Mary Hill, president of Sisters Together Omaha. “Last year we served 499 children. There is clearly a gap in the number of children being served, in spite of a number of major sponsored school supplies distributed for free each year. What we are observing is that families who attend some of the larger institutional distributions may have some stringent qualifications that many of the people who come to ours may not meet.
“It’s not that the other programs are wrong. It’s just that the children rejected still need school supplies. All we require is that any child or parent requesting our supplies must have a valid Omaha Public School schedule for that child. In fact, we even have college students who come for assistance because, after all, college kids need supplies, too.”
Items requested for the school supplies drive include book bags, notebooks, pencils, pens, rulers, crayons, markers, pen boxes, facial tissues, colored pencils, safety scissors, paper paste, erasers, pencil sharpeners, notebook filler paper and antiseptic soap.
For more information, contact Walter Brooks at 559-5768.