Adopt-a-Class TN, a nonprofit established in Tellico Village in 2017, is seeking supplies for three local schools as part of an annual drive.
Donations will help students, teachers and nurses at Loudon, Steekee and Vonore elementary schools.
“The three schools that we support with donations have a student body that’s economically disadvantaged,” Karen Hamerslag, founder and director of Adopt-a-Class, said. “These families are not often able to purchase the supplies that more affluent parents might for their school-age children. And the schools have a pretty decent, but definitely not a good enough, budget, so I think it works decently well for everyone involved for us to make these collections where lots of people give a small amount and it just really adds up to a large amount of supplies.”
Four donation bins are available at various locations across the Village. Three bins are designated for Loudon and Steekee and can be found in the entrance of The Public Library at Tellico Village, at the reception desk in the Welcome Center and near the Wellness Center’s front door. The one bin dedicated to Vonore is located in the Kahite clubhouse in the hallway near the bookcases.
Volunteers regularly collect donations in all four bins and distribute materials to the appropriate school.
Adopt-a-Class also partners with a number of Village organizations, including the local branch of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the New Villagers Club, Rarity Bay Women’s Club and the Ladies Luncheon, which invited the nonprofit to be the Charity Baker at its September event.
“Every month a charity gets the concession to sell baked goods and keep all the money that they make,” Hamerslag said. “And all of the email list will also be getting a request to bring supplies. Last year we did this and it was enormously successful. We got a couple car loads of supplies plus a lot of really generous donations, so I’m very much looking forward to that. … We like that very much when groups show initiative and make that plan and make it happen.”
Though a number of items are always needed at all three schools — paper, notebooks, dry-erase markers and tissues — each school has a specific list of items on the Adopt-a-Class website at adoptaclasstn.org/donations. Some supplies, such as pencils, are currently plentiful but ae still welcome because they will eventually need replacing.
While there’s a big focus on getting donations ahead of each academic year, the bins remain available all year, and Hamerslag said she stays in contact with the schools to ensure the organization does everything it can to help.
“I have very good relationships with the principals, so they know that they can contact me,” she said. “Sometimes the teachers will contact me directly with a request. And I’ll reach out a couple of months from now and ask how things are going, and Sue (Evans, volunteer chair of donation collections), when she’s in the schools, will have access to the supply rooms and be able to say ‘that’s running low, we need to help them with this’.”
In addition to supplies, the group always accepts cash donations. Hamerslag said these can go to more specific items that cannot or are unlikely to be donated or to help the organization buy supplies in bulk at lower cost. She did this recently to buy 50 dictionaries and earbuds for students to use with classroom devices.
Checks made payable to “Adopt-a-Class TN” can be sent to Karen Hamerslag at 232 Elohi Way, Loudon, TN 37774 and are tax exempt. Donors can indicate if they want their contribution to support a specific school and Adopt-a-Class will respect that wish, but Hammerslag said they make sure to spread funds evenly.
“Usually people don’t mind, they’re supportive of all the schools, but every once in a while I’ll get a check with a specific school, which is fine,” she said. “We’re very equitable about how we distribute our support to all three schools. We actually had a board meeting yesterday and we decided to, at least on the expense part, to divvy it up by the size of the schools because there are three different sizes. But in terms of collected supplies, we’ve been pretty much able to make sure everybody gets what they want.”
Hamerslag started the organization in 2017 alongside her husband, originally with the purpose of providing classroom volunteers to help at LES. The donation drive began in the nonprofit’s second year of existence, and Steekee and Vonore were adopted in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
In addition to classroom volunteers and donations, Adopt-a-Class started a program in 2022 to provide all second-graders at the three schools with a nine-month subscription to Highlights magazine and hopes to extend the effort to third-graders this year.
For more information, visit adoptaclasstn.org.
