Media
For media inquiries, please contact:
Benito Delgado-Olson, Executive Director
(510) 569-5862, info@ktocollege.org
Folsom Prisoners Assemble School Supply Kits For Needy Kids
Excerpt: Faced with the challenge of assembling 146,000 school supply kits for low-income California students, an Oakland nonprofit has enlisted the help of Folsom State Prison inmates.
"We really hit our capacity with what the volunteer efforts could do," said Benito Delgado-Olson, the co-founder and executive director of K to College.
The group started a program last year that supplies $65 worth of free school supplies to low-income students in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
Delgado-Olson said the goal is to close the material resource gap at schools with large numbers of students on free or reduced-price lunches. "(Kids) are told to study and do all these things, and they can't even afford basic school supplies," he said.
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ED Delgado-Olson Receives
Hometown Hero Award
Excerpt: Delgado-Olson is targeting what he sees as a clear and urgent gap in local schools: the lack of a system to ensure that all low-income children have the supplies they need to learn. He first identified the problem in 2007 while attending community meetings as research for his undergraduate thesis on Oakland public schools.
"The best way to address a problem is to go see it for yourself," he said. "There are a lot of simple things you can do that won't necessarily change the world but will go a long way."
Working with school districts and drawing on in-kind donations from Oakland-based Give Something Back Office Supplies, Delgado-Olson has been able to multiply $3.5 million in federal stimulus money into $12 million worth of school supplies for children.
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SF Bay Area Students
Get Free School Supplies
Excerpt: Federal stimulus funds are helping some San Francisco Bay area children get ready for the new school year.
More than 150,000 elementary schoolchildren in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties have begun to receive book bags with free school supplies such as erasers, pencils and rulers.
Most of them are going to children whose families meet federal low-income standards.
The $10 million project was organized by a nonprofit called K to College using stimulus as well as local and private funds.
Officials say the idea was to help children who lack basic supplies because their parents may be out of work or their schools can no longer provide them.
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San Francisco Examiner:
Students Get Free School Supplies
Excerpt: Roughly 30,000 San Francisco Public School children will get new school supplies to help start the school year off right.
Starting Thursday, San Francisco Unified School District with the help of San Francisco’s Human Services Agency and the K to College organization, will distribute back to school “kits” with $65 worth of grade-appropriate school supplies to thousands of students.
Kits – which are filled with pencils, erasers, notebooks, colored pencils and a two-sided white board – will be given to Bret Harte Elementary School students Thursday. Harte has approximately 85 percent of its student population that qualifies for free or reduced lunch. Extra kits for children who don’t enroll in the free or reduced lunch program are made possible by donations from K to College’s business partner, Give Something Back Office Supplies.
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