SM Stationery recently donated school supplies to support nongovernment organizations’ education initiatives for children from poor families and whose schooling has been impacted by the pandemic. 

SM Stationery, the school and office supplies department of The SM Store, teamed up with ChildHope Philippines and Caritas Manila in giving school supplies such as notebooks, crayons, rulers, writing pads, ballpoint pens and pencils to thousands of indigent students and street children in the Philippines.

ChildHope Philippines has already helped in the distribution of the school supplies to poor communities in Marikina, and has worked with community and youth leaders to train mothers so that they can teach their kids basic writing, reading and life skills during the quarantine. The other school supplies will be used in their EduKit Project and street learning sessions.

Through their EduKit Project, ChildHope is able to provide school supplies to street children in Metro Manila who are either able to attend formal schooling or go to their Basic Literacy and Numeracy sessions in the streets. Their alternative learning sessions will resume once the situation becomes safer. Caritas Manila, the leading social arm of the Archdiocese of Manila, on the other hand, will use the donations to help its scholars, and sell the other donations in their Segunda Mana stores in exchange for cash. The proceeds of the sale will be used to fund its projects to help not just students but also poor families struggling because of COVID-19.

SM Stationery’s donations complement the active participation of SM Group in providing relief to frontliners and communities impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. SM Stationery, which offers a wide range of school and office supply products, is now open in The SM Store branches in the Philippines.