AmyBSells Giving Back

Local Press

• Cincinnati.com 5/29/08
• Eastern Hills Journal 6/13/08
• Business Courier Journal 7/11/08
  full article here
• Catholic Telegraph 7/25/08 (pdf)
• Hyde Park Living 08/08 (pdf)

School supply drive lifts the burden of poverty for 200 students

Local Realtor makes community servicemore than a sales pitch

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Cincinnati, Ohio, September 14, 2008 - This school year, AmyBSells Giving Back charity organization donated more than $5,000 tothe students of St. Cecilia's School in Oakley. In two months, founder Amy Broghamer spent more than 100 hours raisingmoney, shopping for school supplies, and assembling goodie bags to give to studentson their first day of classes.

"We had very little time, and the need was greater than I bargained for," Broghamer admitted, "but everything came off without a hitch." Ultimately, AmyBSells Giving Back provided 200 students with more than 6,000 pens, paper, folders, protractors, and other supplies - a haul that filled an entire single-car garage.

Transporting the supplies took eight car trips, and 20 volunteers labored for 13 hours to assemble the supplies in the school cafeteria. "Stuffing the bags was the most fun - seeing the final product andknowing that, this year, every kid at St. Cecilia will have an opportunity tolearn and grow unhindered by financial limitations," Broghamer said.

The AmyBSells Giving Back enterprise is more than a charity, it's a necessity. "There are children who get left out of activities because they don't have basic supplies like scissors or a ruler," St. Cecilia's Principal Lori Heffner said. "We try very hard not to distinguish between low-income students, but usually it's very easy to tell who is from a low-income family on the first dayof class: Some kids bring boxes of 64 crayons, and others bring five broken ones."

With more than 56 percent of their students coming from low-income families,teachers at St. Cecilia have a hard time keeping everyone on the samepage. "The first day of classes is usually a 'mine-is-better-than-yours' contest, because some kids can't afford the nice folders and notebooks," said Ginger Hamm, a fourth through eighth grade math and reading teacher.

For students from low-income families, the first week is stressful and can set the stage for poor performance. "You can't learn when you feel like you're not good enough," Broghamer asserted. "I want these kids to know that they are worthwhile. They deserve a chance to do their best."

The charity also eased the burden on teachers to supply their unprepared students, and allowed them to concentrate on their core goal - learning. "Thanks to Amy's efforts, everyone came in onthe first day with the same brand-new notebooks and folders and calculators,"Hamm said. "I didn't have to worry about whether my students needed supplies, or dig into my own pockets to buy basic necessities like pencils. Everyone was ready to hit the ground running. No one was unprepared."

PTA President Christina Elmore said that Broghamer's work was hard to comprehend. "I was shocked, because St. Cecilia doesn't get a lot of funding from anyone," she said. "Kids at Catholic schools are sometimes from families without a lot ofmeans who just want their children to have a better education. It's important for those kids to have these resources."

While there are resources for teachers in low-income districts, St. Cecilia falls just short of being disadvantaged enough to receive support from many assistance programs. Places like Crayons to Computers offer free supplies to teachers in struggling school systems, but they specify that more than 70 percent of the student body must be on the federal free and reduced lunch program before teachers can shop there, or teachers can volunteer a few hours and get a one-time shopping trip. Yet, even if teachers volunteer and shop at Crayons to Computers, the supplies are donated and therefore limited, and the demand is high, so there are caps on how much a teacher can buy at one time.

"There's no way we could have provided for all our students if we had gone to Crayons to Computers," Heffner said. "And the supplies would probably not be equivalent, which would miss the point of starting all our students off with equal footing. The nice thing about AmyBSells Giving Back is that all the supplies were the same, so no one felt left out or less than."

As a mother of three girls who attend St. Cecilia and with another baby girl on the way, Elmore said not having to buy all those supplies was a relief, because she didn't have to worry about her girls missing anything. "I am capable of providing for my children,but now I can buy them something special, like gym shoes," she said. "And this wasn't generic stuff: Having cool supplies is really important to my 14-year-old. It's been a real blessing."

And the students loved it. At a morning assembly during the second week of classes, the students of St. Cecilia presented Broghamer with a basket brimming over with the colorful construction paper and glued glitter of homemade thank you cards:

Thank you for the school supplies. It gives my family enough money to get food. I love the pencil bag and all the stuff that was in it. Love, Kiara

You saved my parents a lot of money. They are very very happy that you did this nice thing for us. It was almost my birthday when you did this, so my mom said it was either school supplies or a birthday present and you know what it would be. So thanks. Sincerely, Tyler, Grade 4

Thank you for the school supplies. I'm using the supplies to make you this card. I can tell this will be a good school year. From, Kyle

"I was trying my best not to cry," Broghamer said. "That was more of a reward than I could have asked for."

Heffner said that Broghamer is a role model for the younger children. "The work Amy did is a visual sign of the core belief at St. Cecilia - to support each other and to help those less fortunate than us," Heffner said. "A lot of the smaller children don't understand that giving has its own rewards, but this is a very visible example of that principle."

And she's not going to stop there. In a struggling economy, work like this is even more important, according to Broghamer. "These are hard times, but this is where you earn your stripes," she said. "You have to work twice as hard and be twice as creative, attentive, and involved. Just because the economy is bad, that's no excuse to stop caring about people who are less fortunate than me."

As a Realtor, Broghamer's community outreach permeates every facet of her business, and she even donates to local charities on her clients' behalves instead of giving a typical closing gift. "When you buy a home, supporting the community is not an extracurricular activity, but an essential and mandatory part of enriching the place where you live and grow, where your children will live and grow. And every child deserves the best opportunities possible to get a decent education."

In the future, Broghamer plans to continue the relationship her charity started with St. Cecilia, and to add an additional outreach project next year. Currently, AmyBSells Giving Back has two pending grants from Meijer and Sam's Club.

Local companies and businesses that supported the St. Cecilia school supplies fundraiser included: Remax PreferredGroup of Hyde Park, State Farm Insurance office of Greg Meinberg, Wells Fargo Home Loans, Richards Industries, Office Depot, SC Johnson, AA Home Inspection, Tamarak Distributors, PNC Bank, and the AmyBSells Real Estate Team. More than 30 of AmyBSells' clients contributed to the effort.

Anyone interested in donating to AmyBSells Giving Back can contact AmyBroghamer directly at (513)377-3637 or amy@amybsells.com. Visit http://www.amybsells.com/GivingBack for more information. Donations will be accepted year-round for the 2009 St. Cecilia Supply Drive and an additional project to be announced.

Sincerely,

Amy Broghamer, Founder
AmyBSells Giving Back
2008 St. Cecilia School Supply Drive