A New Box of Crayons

When I was a kid, I loved the beginning of school.  I would like to say that it was because I was excited to move to the next grade, where I would be imparted with the knowledge of the ages, but mainly I was excited about getting new school supplies. Opening up a brand new box of crayons is one of the true pleasures of life and if you were lucky enough to convince your parents that you really, really, really, NEEDED the big box of 64 crayons WITH the BUILT IN crayon sharpener, you knew that you would be the envy of all your classmates. "Why yes, I have a blue crayon you can borrow.  Would you prefer cerulean, sky blue or periwinkle?"

Don't you love the way school supplies look, feel and even smell?  Go Ahead... open up a box of crayons and take a big, deep breath and it will take you back to your elementary school days.  Some of you even like the way school supplies taste.  Admit it, we all knew someone in our class who ate glue.

As a parent, buying school supplies is much more stressful, especially if you have more than one child. Many of our parents at Ortiz are going to school themselves or working minimum wage jobs and it is difficult to find the extra money for pencils, markers, glue, scissors and crayons.

This year, at Ortiz, thanks to Arrow Ford and Walmart, all of our students received school supplies!  Every, single one!  We have 641 students and that's a lot of crayons, folks.  Our parents were so grateful and oh my, the kids were ex-cit-ed!  For some of our students, it was the first time they had ever started a school year with new markers and crayons.  It may seem like a small thing to us, but to a first grader, having nice school supplies is huge.  There are no words to describe the atmosphere at our school at Meet the Teacher Night, so I will just show you a few pictures!  Enjoy!

A special thank you to our School Supply Angel from Arrow Ford, General Manager, Shanna Kevil.  One little guy asked our principal where Mrs. Arrow Ford was because he wanted to say thank you, and Mrs. Fulkerson pointed him right to Shanna!

Also a thank you to the Cactus Lion's Club, who provided each student with school bags to carry all those supplies.  You guys rock!

It looks like it's going to be a good year!