A Suncook funeral home was an unexpected site of optimism last week after the owners found themselves so inundated with notebooks, pens, protractors and a single stapler that they had to cordon off a room just to get handle on the heaping piles of elementary school essentials.
But if you ask Matt Roan of Petit-Roan Funeral Home, the results of the school supply drive were a surprise, but the energy behind them wasn’t.
“We wanted to stir up the spirit of the town,” he said. “But the outpouring has been overwhelming, to say the least.”
The call for school supplies put out by Matt and his wife, Katie, brought in 1,560 pencils, 189 packages of crayons, 217 glue sticks, 16 backpacks and one solitary stapler, to name a few items on the list. The supplies were divvied up between Allenstown Elementary School and Pembroke Village School, and they were dropped off at each school Thursday, Aug. 23.
The Roans said the idea for the school supply drive was spurred by similar effort at a funeral home in Portland, Maine. But Matt was very clear on why they decided to bring the idea to Suncook.
“Make sure you put in there that this was my wife’s idea,” he said.
And while they split the supplies right down the middle between the two schools, the answer to one burning question remained: Who got the stapler?
Pembroke Village wound up with that pile, Matt said. But Allenstown Elementary got a sandwich box.
The final tally of school supplies collected by Petit-Roan Funeral Home for Pembroke Village School and Allenstown Elementary School:
137 packages of crayons
52 packages of markers
21 binders
12 packs of Clorox wipes
189 notebooks
67 packs of colored pencils
58 rulers
5 compass/protractor sets
83 composition books
4 rolls of Scotch tape
34 packages of filler paper
15 legal pads
217 glue sticks
264 erasers
70 pencil cases
1,560 pencils
3 pencil sharpeners
16 backpacks
3 packs of index cards
226 folders
80 highlighters
2 packs of Post-it notes
7 containers of hand sanitizer
260 pens
5 organizer bins
4 packs of index dividers
1 stapler
1 sandwich box
(Nick Upton can be reached at 369-3315 or at nupton@cmonitor.com.)