Obama campaign donates office supplies to schools

Six stock clerks from the School District of Philadelphia picked up four donated couches, three desks, a book-shelf, a microwave and boxes of office supplies from an Obama campaign office at 1500 Sansom St. this morning.

Mike Bowens and his co-workers said they would transport the leftover infrastructure from Sen. Barack Obama's historic victory drive to a district warehouse, where the furniture and supplies would be doled out to schools across the city.

"It's great," Bowens said. "The schools here can really use this stuff."

This was the fourth Obama office in Philadelphia to donate to the city schools.

The donations began after the Obama campaign contacted iloveschools.com, a national nonprofit organization based in San Diego that helps teachers find equipment, materials and supplies that their districts may not be able to afford.

Valerie Swanson, marketing director for iloveschools.com, said a specific focus of the national Obama campaign was to give back and donate office supplies and other materials to schools.

"Tens of thousands of supplies have been donated in two days to various schools across the country," Swanson said. "We were very excited to reach out and give such a large number of supplies to schools in need."

A total of 14 Obama campaign offices in Philadelphia have pledged to donate supplies, she said. About 200 campaign offices across the country have pledged donations in 12 states, including Texas, Indiana and Oregon.

"We received a really great response from the schools in Philadelphia and across Pennsylvania," Swanson said. "When schools receive supplies from us, the most common response I get is, 'It was like Christmas.' "

She said ilovschools.com provides new and used supplies to teachers in need of school equipment. "The Obama campaign is just an example of the kind of things we do," Swanson said. "We also work with Fortune 500 companies and individuals on a personal level who want to donate to their children's school."

On average, she said, teachers in America "spend about $500 out of their own pocket every year just for school supplies for the classroom."