The Storehouse

Providing Essentials for Neighbors in Need
Students at K.B. White Elementary School in the Highland Park area of Detroit face daily hardships, which include the challenge of arriving to school safely, working with outdated textbooks and broken furniture, and sitting in mice-infested classrooms. For most of these children, having school supplies to help them become able learners is just one of many unfulfilled dreams.

Leslee Hathaway teaches special education at White Elementary because she wants to step up to that challenge. She has found a willing partner in World Vision, which operates the Kids in Need Resource Center. The center provides teachers like Leslee the opportunity to “shop” regularly for school supplies and learning tools that give her young students a boost and a better chance to achieve academic success.
Rulers, pens, notebooks, and other supplies provided by Kids-in-Need are essential tools for young learners.

“The children now have pencils that are longer than 2 inches in length. Your program has provided art supplies that allow our students to explore and discover their hidden talents,” she said in a letter of thanks to World Vision. Leslee added that Kids in Need frees up the resources she needs to supply her students with calculators, computer games, and a printer.

Filling the Education Gaps for Kids in Need
The Kids in Need Resource Center is under the umbrella of The Storehouse of World Vision. It is a free supply store for teachers who work in schools that serve low-income families. Teachers “shop” for teaching aids and books, binders, backpacks, pencils, art supplies, and posters. They also might find educational toys and games that can be used as incentives for stellar schoolwork or good behavior. Thanks to the center, teachers in participating schools don’t have to dig into their own wallets or watch their students go without educational supplies.

Kids in Need offers school and office supplies through a partnership with World Vision and the School and Home Office Supply Association’s Foundation for Educational Excellence. Its member manufacturers and retailers donate their overstock and surplus goods to the center, providing high-quality tools for learning.

Building Better Lives With Quality Materials
School supplies are just one aspect of The Storehouse. In several cities (and eventually all of them) building supplies and remodeling materials are made available to those trying to lift their neighbors out of poverty.

Two years ago the building Lakisha and her young daughter called home had broken appliances, dilapidated cabinets, peeling paint, and broken tile, among other ailments that made the Westside apartment building a worn, weary place to live.

Thanks to a faith-based program called New Moms and its partnership with World Vision in Chicago, the building has been restored, one apartment at a time, using materials from The Storehouse. Today Lakisha, 20, and 4-year-old Kiara live in a bright, cheerful apartment that shares living space, a playroom, and laundry room with other young mothers (ages 14 to 21) as they adjust to being parents.

Building Strong Communities

The Storehouse offers building materials to community-based groups, churches, low-income individuals, and organizations like New Moms in the Chicago area for a nominal contribution to cover warehousing costs. These items—which range from paint, windows, and plumbing fixtures, to doors, flooring, cabinetry, and electrical supplies—are used to repair, renovate, and create affordable and low-income housing for families in struggling neighborhoods.

Building Self-esteem With Fundamentals for Families
In Los Angeles, The Storehouse is home to the Clothing Outlet, which helps people looking for, or beginning new jobs by allowing them to build a wardrobe appropriate for the workplace. The Storehouse in each World Vision city offers a varying supply of necessities needed to live everyday life with dignity. These range from clothes and toys to personal care and household items.



Ivan Gonzalez, General Manager of The Storehouse of World Vision Chicago, oversees service to a diversity of churches, community organizations, and low-income families with building and home improvement materials.



All of the items offered through The Storehouse are supplied by retailers, manufacturers and suppliers, who donate their top-quality overstock items to help people who are trying to build better lives for themselves.

Achievements
In 2002, The Storehouse programs (Kids in Need, building supplies, and Fundamentals for Families) worked with nearly 4,000 World Vision ministry partners to serve more than 700,000 children and families with more than $30 million in donated new goods and merchandise.

For more information on The Storehouse and its programs and how to partner with World Vision in this vital ministry, contact Keith Neroutsos at 253-815-2378 or knerouts@worldvision.org.

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Vision Youth
Help provide tutoring, life skills training, and a caring relationship to high-risk youth.

The Storehouse
Provide school supplies, clothes, toys, household goods and building supplies for strengthening families,schools and neighborhoods.

Tools for Transformation
Help provide the organizational, planning and leadership tools to transform a neighborhood.


Read about what is happening in The Storehouse program around the country by clicking on the location name below.


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