Change Two Lives for The Price of One!

OTTAWA - March 4th, 2020 - Imagine you could spend $10 on school supplies and change a life. Now imagine it was two lives. During the month of March, you can do just that at www.schoolbox.ca/matching, where Canadian charity SchoolBOX turns your donation into notebooks, pencils and more for some of the poorest kids in the Western hemisphere. In Nicaragua, most families live on less than $2 a day and almost half of kids quit school before 7th Grade. With your help, that can change and you can enable these kids to reach for their dreams - especially this month. In an incredible boost to their fundraising, a generous donor and beloved member of the SchoolBOX community has offered to match all donations in March up to $20,000.

Almost 15 years ago Tom Affleck was traveling in Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America, where gave notebooks and pencils to two young girls he met. The father of one of the girls was moved, saying that she would now be able to attend school; the moment was equally life-changing for Tom, who realised the difference a seemingly small gift could make. On returning to Canada, he founded SchoolBOX, with the vision of giving school supplies to the many children in Nicaragua who live in poverty in order to make education possible. By providing school supplies, his dream was to enable these children to stay in school and eventually change their future!

The SchoolBOX family now supports over 18,000 students in 109 communities. Student school supply packages include not just a notebook and a pencil, but also a ruler, eraser, colouring pencils - everything they need for a whole year in school. Every third year the packages arrive in a sturdy backpack, and teachers get annual packages too! The items are produced (where possible), packaged and distributed in Nicaragua, by local staff and volunteers, keeping costs to a minimum and supporting the local economy.

And the statistics show things are changing. In 2007, UNESCO figures showed that 48% of children enrolled in elementary school completed Grade 6. After five years, that number rose to 56% (UNICEF 2012), and the SchoolBOX mission aims to continue that improvement, through the provision of school supplies and also through school and library construction projects in Nicaragua.

The generous matching donation secured for March will help SchoolBOX to meet the goal of providing school supplies to 18,000 students and teachers this year, but they need your help. $10 buys one school supply package, so for $300 you can normally equip a whole class, but this month, every donation is matched, making this a great time to buy-one-smile-get-one-smile-free! Visit SchoolBOX's website at www.schoolbox.ca/matching and please give generously.

About SchoolBOX:
SchoolBOX is committed to 'Making Education Possible' for the children of Nicaragua. SchoolBOX implements cost effective programming by building schools, providing school supplies, libraries, and teacher training. The SchoolBOX community is united in love for the children it serves and the belief that education can defeat poverty. SchoolBOX is comprised of thousands of people from different faiths and socioeconomic backgrounds. It empowers educators and students, and they in turn empower their communities and change the world.

Contact: Jonathan Tam, jon@schoolbox.ca, +16138698185

SchoolBOX Inc
154 Bridge St, Almonte, ON K0A 1A0
Jonathan Tam, jon@schoolbox.ca, +16138698185

SchoolBOX is a Canadian NGO committed towards 'Making Education Possible' in Central America. Through our various programs, we are aiding teachers and empowering thousands of students to get a basic education. SchoolBOX provides an educational package with sufficient materials (notebooks, pencils, eraser, pencil sharpener, ruler, coloured pencils, and modelling clay) for a student to study for an entire school year. Our organization gives each INDIVIDUAL student in our partner schools an educational package, which ensures that the supplies are distributed in the most equitable and transparent means possible. It is simple, cost-effective and it works! You can empower a student or teacher with enough supplies to last them an entire year for only $10 CAD.

This release was published on openPR.