As a Girl Scout, senior Riti Patel encountered many challenges over the course of nearly 10 years, from learning how to camp in the wilderness to selling cookies to strangers to completing service projects — but nothing compared to what she witnessed during a mentoring program.
Younger girls who received school materials seemed not to know how to use the scissors to cut out shapes, how to use glue sticks to paste paper together or how to use staplers to staple papers. At the time, Patel could only watch their confusion, but she decided she wanted to help them in the near future.
“I noticed some of the girls did not know how to use scissors, (and) I asked my troop leader,” Patel said. “She said that they didn’t have these materials at their schools, so I wanted to create something that would increase school supply access for underprivileged students.”
Like Patel, her friend, senior Adithri Raghuram noticed that some of her classmates did not have school supplies for the new academic school year. Both went to the same elementary and middle schools.
“For me, the most fun part about back-to-school season was choosing notebooks with different patterns, color-coordinating my folders and purchasing sparkly pens,” Raghuram said. “Beyond the aesthetic, having basic school supplies is essential for a quality education. When I noticed the same issue continuing into middle school and even the beginning of high school, I knew that something had to change.”
This realization set the stage for Supplying Smiles, a nonprofit organization that Patel and Raghuram started to help provide students of all backgrounds with school supplies to supplement their education. The long-term goal is to encourage future generations to grow academically and establish financial security.
“(We) provide school supplies for underprivileged children,” Patel said, “and, to alleviate the financial burden associated with acquiring new school supplies for their families.”
To carry out Supplying Smiles’ mission, the two seniors organize events and fundraisers at parks and schools to raise money and provide supplies to families in need.
“Our first donation was to Jerry Junkins Elementary School in Dallas ISD,” Raghuram said. “Here, we met a newly immigrated Mexican family with three children who needed school supplies for the coming school year. We were able to not only provide them with them, but give them the luxury of picking out what colored books and stationery they wanted.”
As a Title I school, most of the 732 students that go there are financially disadvantaged — about 85%.
“It was an immediate impact to our students and their parents,” Parent-Support Specialist Nayeli Hernandez said. “When two of our students who are new to the country received a backpack full of supplies, their smiles were so big, and they were so amazed by the colored pencils. Mom and Dad explained that back in their country, the kids had never had any school supplies other than (a) paper and pencil.”
Their main motivating factor was the joy they felt “seeing kids’ faces light up” as they went around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. They credited this feeling to the immense growth of their nonprofit.
“We started Supplying Smiles with the intention of easing the lives of young students around us,” Raghuram said. “We didn’t expect that over two months we would raise over $500, enough to donate to an elementary school and a school district. What began with just two people aiming to help a couple families in our community, led to us shipping school supplies to those in need across the nation.”
Local bake sales and lemonade stands marked only the starting point for them. They wanted to spread their impact to more regions and students in the United States.
“Since then, we have even established a fundraising team to fund for our largest initiative yet: Smiles Across America, where we donated supplies to school districts over 20 states,” Raghuram said. “Our fundraising team hosted art classes, ice cream stands, college help sessions and went door-to-door to collect monetary donations.”
In four years, the organization has donated 22,700 supplies to over 22 states through this fundraising expansion. However, Patel said she doesn’t want to stop there.
“We’ve done door-to-door, online campaigns, lemonade stands, bake sales and more,” Patel said. “I hope to be able to reach all 50 states, including Hawaii and Alaska and be able to donate to kids in Canada as well.”
They plan on bringing Supplying Smiles with them to college, even though Raghuram plans on going to the University of Texas in Austin while Patel has committed to the University of California in Berkeley.
“I hope that we can solidify and expand our impact further,” Raghuram said. “We have also mentioned creating mentorship programs and workshops to further supplement education beyond donating supplies. We aspire to continue reducing educational inequity through community service.”
This article was edited by Emily Logan, Kate Duncan and Victoria Byers.
