The Rewrite Project has been collecting used stationery, cleaning it and repackaging it for students and teachers at schools.
The rewrite project was started to recycle old stationery for students at underprivileged schools. The concept was started by Melody in Newlands while clearing her daughters room, she found large amounts of unused stationery and having been a volunteer at an underprivileged school, Melody saw need for stationery at the school.
“Seeing these children come to school so ill equipped got my mind rolling….its time to collect for these kids”
The concept is to collect, clean, pack and redistribute unused and used stationery. The project collects stationery for all age bases as they supply stationary packs to various grades at schools.
They collect crayons, roll-ups, kokis, rulers, pens, pencils, sharpeners, erasers and pencil bags. They also collect old ice-cream tubs to help with sorting the stationary and as storage for teachers’ spare boxes.
Melody creates events where volunteers get together and have “Clean and Sort” evenings. She is thankful for the support received around the project.
“Today I was blown away by this thoughtful donation. This young grade 6 lady from St Cyprians sewed 10 pencil cases herself and then collected, cleaned and sharpened all the pencils to fill the bags!!”
The project runs year round with the peak times being closer to the start and end of school terms.
“I started the Rewrite project just over a year ago and would like to see it grow. My aim over the next few months is to form a dedicated committee and group of volunteer collectors and helpers so that the project can flow continuously. We would also like to get a stationary company on board to help us with electric sharpeners – we literally sharpen thousands of pencils manually….always lots of blisters”
Each child get’s their own pencil case filled with all the essentials for class work. The class teacher also gets given an ice-cream box filled with spare stationery that they can distribute as needed.
The Westlake Primary School was visited by the project and children from grade 1 to 7 received pencil cases with stationery in it in 2016.
If you would like to contribute to the project in any way you can contact Melody on Facebook or at “therewriteproject2016@gmail.com”
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