Wednesday, November 12, 2008
by Daniel Malloy
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Gary Drexler, of McKees Rocks, who is with the Sto-Rox School District, arrives at the empty
Obama campaign headquarters on Smithfield Street, Downtown, to pick up donated office
equipment.

Word spread quickly last week through Sto-Rox High School when students learned that the
administrative offices were filled with Barack Obama paraphernalia.

Students snapped up posters and stickers for their lockers, backpacks and bedroom walls, eager
to commemorate the victory of the first African American to ascend to the nation’s highest
office.

The enthusiasm excited administrators, but it’s not what brought tears to the eyes of Jean
Schmalzreid, the district’s director of federal programs and special projects. That happened when
she saw school facilities workers bring in dolly after dolly piled high with thousands of dollars
worth of supplies donated from Obama campaign offices in Pittsburgh.

Six computers will be dedicated to creating learning centers for struggling middle school
students. An all-in-one printer, copier and fax machine will hum all day in the middle school
library. And the art department received piles of markers, paint and poster board.

They were part of a program Mr. Obama’s campaign, funded better than any in the history of
American politics, devised in partnership with iloveschools.com, a Web site that helps connect
teachers with organizations that donate school supplies.

“[President-elect Obama's] outreach just means the world to us,” Ms. Schmalzreid said. “The
man had the foresight to plan this. In the middle of a huge national campaign, he’s thinking about
poor children.”

Valarie Swanson, marketing director for San Diego-based iloveschools.com, said the Obama
campaign contacted the Web site a few weeks ago to organize donations.

Nearly 200 campaign offices in 10 states pledged to participate, she said, in what has easily been
the Web site’s largest single donation effort.

In places with high concentrations of campaign offices, including Western Pennsylvania, a key
campaign battleground, organizers reached out to poorer school districts. Local districts were
assigned three offices each from which they could take whatever they liked, provided they
retrieved the materials themselves.

In the Pittsburgh area, that included Clairton School District, where 85 percent of students were
eligible for free or reduced-price lunches last year, and Sto-Rox, where the figure was 65
percent.

“It’s so beautiful to see these things being disseminated over here because our kids have
nothing,” Ms. Schmalzreid said. “Some of our families struggle to put food on the table and
struggle to get their kids warm coats for winter.”

She added that the office supplies — including reams of unused printer paper and other items still
in boxes — will put a considerable dent in next year’s budget to allow spending on other needs.

Aside from the monetary value, there’s a civics lesson here. Students who have followed the race
in class now can touch a piece of history, or put it on their walls.

“For the first time in a long time, there’s a real sense of possibility here,” Ms. Schmalzreid said.
“A lot of our kids are thinking, ‘Hey, if he can do it, I can do it.’ ”

Daniel Malloy can be reached at dmalloy@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1731.