Delco nonprofit helps teachers fill classrooms with school supplies

FOLCROFT, Pa. (CBS) – The first day of school is less than a week away for some school districts in Delaware County. One nonprofit is helping teachers get their classrooms ready before students arrive.

Teachers' Teammates operates a 3,000-square-foot warehouse in Folcroft that contains just about everything an educator needs to supply a classroom, including folders, crayons, notebooks and backpacks. The nonprofit's founder and executive director, Raelyn Harman, is in charge of getting those supplies into teachers' hands.

"We have 150 orders in the pipeline that we're trying to get out as quickly as possible because school is starting," Harman said.

Teachers who are members of the nonprofit can request specific school supplies. Harman and her team will find the items in the warehouse and pack them up. Teachers can pick up the supplies at the warehouse or have them delivered to their schools.

"Educators or teachers can pay $40 for a two-year membership," Harman said. "They order once a quarter up to 25 items. Everything from that point on is free."

Some of those free items were loaded into a van on Tuesday morning to be dropped off at several schools. The first stop on the list was Darby Township School, where school counselor Melissa Papale received a delivery of binders, markers, glue and bookbags.

"A lot of times students will come to me and ask for stuff that they need because they're too embarrassed to ask their teachers," Papale said, "so I like to make sure that I'm all supplied up."

Stephanie Ellis, a teacher at Chester Upland School of The Arts, received her delivery on Monday. She estimates she's spent hundreds of dollars of her own money on school supplies, but Teachers' Teammates eases the burden.

"I don't even have a word for how grateful I am because it's just a blessing," Ellis said.

As the demand for school supplies continues to grow, the nonprofit will need more donations to keep up.

"We have different organizations that will do school supply drives at this time of year and donate those to us," Harman said. "Financial donations pay for some core supplies that we feel we have to have in stock no matter what, and we'll buy them at wholesale costs."

Harman added that her nonprofit also accepts donations from companies that move from one building to another, purging their office supplies in the process.

She is hoping to move into a bigger warehouse one day to serve even more schools in Delaware County.