More Than Supplies: The Tools4Schools Initiative

In today’s episode of Oak City Move, Sophs sits down with Keith Poston, president of the WakeEd Partnership, to discuss the impact of the Tools4Schools initiative on teachers and students across Wake County. Join us as we explore how Tools4Schools helps provide essential school supplies to educators and classrooms, ensuring students have the resources they need to learn, grow, and succeed. By investing in our teachers and students, Tools4Schools helps build stronger classrooms, more equitable learning opportunities, and a brighter future for our entire community. Tune in to learn how this initiative is making a difference and how supporting local education benefits us all! https://wakeed.org/ 

Oak City Move is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2, student-run radio from NC State University. Like what you hear? Consider supporting it with a gift to the WKNC Enhancement Fund. Visit our podcast page to hear more and follow us on all social media platforms @WKNC881. Thanks for listening.

Creators and Guests

Host

Sophs Magnanini

Public Affairs Director (2025-2026)

What is Oak City Move?

A radio program and podcast from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 celebrating those who enact positive changes in the Raleigh community.

00:00
Sophia Magnanini
Oak City Move is a podcast on WKNC's 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh, where we highlight people and organizations creating positive change in the Triangle and beyond. Oak City Move can be heard on air Every Monday on 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh or online at wknc.org. To listen to episodes and more, go to our blog at blog.wknc.org or follow us on SoundCloud @wknc881. Hello, 88.1 WKNC Raleigh. The song you just heard was Sweaty linen by Surf Ninja 3. I'm Sophia Magnanini, your host and you're listening to Oak City Move. Today we are joined by a very special guest, Keith Poston, president of Wake Ed Partnership, as well as a part of the Tools for Schools initiative. First off, I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to join me.

00:57
Sophia Magnanini
And if we wanted to start off the interview for people and listeners who are hearing about Tools for Schools for the first time, if you kind of wanted to talk about it and Yalls mission and what it does for our community.

01:10
Keith Poston
Sure, absolutely. Well, Wake Education Partnership, or Wake Ed Partnership, is the nonprofit that I lead. Tools for Schools is one of our initiatives. It's one of our newest ones. We launched it four years ago, but I mean, to understand why and what we do, you really have to understand Wake Ed Partnership, were created actually 43 years ago and it was the purpose of the time. And it was founded by mostly business leaders that were already working together at the Raleigh Chamber that supported education, that thought that the community would benefit from having a standalone organization that would support the students and teachers of Wake county, whether it was through programming, through fundraising, you know, through bond campaigns, public awareness, et cetera. So that's where we came from.

02:03
Keith Poston
And I have been in my role as president of Wake Ed for six and a half years, and we started Tools for Schools four years ago. And I can tell you a little about Tools. I know we have some, you have some questions about it, but Tools for Schools is really was created from a simple concept that we didn't believe that teachers should have to spend money out of their own pocket to buy basic school supplies for their classrooms. I mean, I have been working for a long time and I can tell you I've never had to buy my own copy paper and pens and pencils and things to do my job that I'm hired to do. But that's kind of the norm for teachers, even in a county like Wake that has more resources than lots of counties in North Carolina.

02:52
Sophia Magnanini
That's great. And it's so great what you guys are doing because, yeah, like you were saying, it's kind of crazy that teachers who are doing so much, taking so much out of their time and just their lives to help make sure that students get the right education, the right tools that are needed, and the fact that they have to provide all of those themselves is just takes a toll on a lot of teachers. And so it's really important what you guys are doing and helping that.

03:23
Keith Poston
Yeah, we think so. I mean, it's, you know, when we. And I can tell you the backstory of how it came about. But yeah, it's. My sister was a teacher. My mom worked in the public schools as well. And I mean, it's always been a thing that teachers would, you know, would buy things for their own classrooms. I can remember my sister shopping for her own kids for back to school, but then also shopping for things for their classrooms and really talking about things that the students need.

03:50
Keith Poston
And, you know, I don't know what it was like when you went to school, but I can remember back in elementary school, teachers would have, like, a coat closet for, like, if a kid didn't have a coat, either they forgot it or just didn't have it or they would have extra supplies because, you know, public schools are for everyone. And, you know, not every child, you know, gets to go back to school shopping and get all the new things and fill out all those lists. And those lists that the teachers provide are getting longer and those prices, those supplies are getting more expensive. So, you know, we want not only the teachers not to have to worry about it.

04:30
Keith Poston
We don't want the students to ever feel less than and to feel like they don't have what they need when they walk in the door. And teachers are great. I mean, I can just. I mean, I just. I can remember I mentioned this when growing up, not just supplies, but I remember when you would go like, you know, little field trips. Like, we would. I grew up in Fayetteville, and we would come up here to the, like, Museum of Natural Sciences. And, you know, of course everyone wants to go to the gift shop, but again, not everyone's got money. But I can remember teachers, you know, reaching in their pocket and, you know, slipping somebody a few bucks so they can get something too. So that's one thing I love about teachers.

05:10
Keith Poston
They're going to make sure that their kids, their children are taken care of and so we're trying to take care.

05:15
Sophia Magnanini
Of them, which is really great and so needed because. Yeah, like you were saying, there's so many things that go into teaching and that teachers need besides just, you know, pens and papers. Especially, like you're saying, the primary schools, and when children are younger and they might need things like, you know, like stickers or different things like that, or like you were saying, for those who might not be as financially stable or able to get all these things. So it's just really great that you guys are helping to back these people that do so much for our community.

05:54
Keith Poston
Yeah. And, you know, and you were kind of sort of alluding to it and saying it's not just. I mean, we provide school supplies, but, you know, teachers serve such a role with students. I mean, they're kind of their first line of. I mean, they're usually the first person that notices whether you need glasses or not. That was my experience. If you're sick, if you need something. And unfortunately, a lot of kids come in experiencing trauma, Whether it's housing insecurity or food insecurity or violence in the home, teachers are there to identify the kids that need something extra. They take on a lot of that trauma and stress.

06:39
Keith Poston
I don't think the public fully understands what all the teachers sort of have to deal with, because the outside world comes into the classroom, and they're really trying to take care of the child while getting them ready to move on to the next grade.

06:56
Sophia Magnanini
They really do have to provide such a safe space for these children. And so it takes a lot of resources and time. And also, like you were saying, it can just take a toll on. On their emotions and their mental health as well. Because, I mean, seeing being in charge of so many children or teenagers or just people in general is a big deal. And so it's great that you guys are helping kind of take that toll off them. Was there a particular moment when you guys kind of realized that this program was something that Wake county really needed?

07:36
Keith Poston
Well, after the first year, I mean, we launched it, we got some grants before we ever opened the doors. And so the first year. And this was in 22. 2022, Right after, really, the COVID Were just starting to come back fully in person from everything with COVID In fact, when we first opened, were still wearing masks in, like, crowded spaces. But. But that first year, we mostly got money and cash to buy supplies to stock the store. But within that first year, we sort of also started getting donations of supplies, but were just gonna see how it would go, we didn't know one, was this something that we could run as a small nonprofit sustainably? There's 160,000 students in Wake County. There's 10,000 teachers. We're a small nonprofit of five. And could we actually serve all the teachers that need it?

08:40
Keith Poston
And could we bring in enough supplies and resources to do it? And when we got done with the first year, we had already expanded from all the Title 1 schools to every school in Wake County. And in year one, we gave away $230,000 in new school supplies. That number is now about 202 and a half million dollars. So, yeah, that 230,000 was, I guess, was probably these. Somewhere along in that year, we're like, yeah, this is really filling a need. We did our own surveys, but there were also public surveys out there that teachers were spending, you know, close to $1,000 out of their own pocket every year. And so if we could do something to take some of that burden off of them. And it was clear. And the teachers were just ecstatic. I mean, they were so appreciative.

09:32
Keith Poston
You know, sometimes I actually felt little bad because they would come in and when they're like, is this all for us? And, like, is this. And it's free. And, you know, you would hear things like, it's like Christmas. And, you know, one hand, that made me feel really good, but it also made me feel, like, sad that, like, just providing the things they need to do their job is somehow, like, a special treat. But they, you know, the teachers are so appreciative, and the community, which I hope we get a chance to talk about, has really responded and understands tools for schools and. And we've really grown since we started well now, four and a half years ago.

10:11
Sophia Magnanini
That's great. And when you talk about the store, if you kind of want to go into what Yalls roles kind of look like behind the scenes and how you guys are able to get these materials to the different teachers.

10:30
Keith Poston
Right? Well, it is. And I'm glad you called it a store, because you should actually come over and visit. We actually have it set up to look like a store. It's very. It's very. You know, we moved into a new space a little over two years ago, and the space needed a lot of work, so were able to completely sort of redo the area where the store is. And it's, you know, very. It's very bright and colorful, and there's windows all around. It's really set up to look like, you know, like a bright, happy, you know, school supply section at Target or Staples or Walmart. Walmart. It doesn't look like we didn't want it to look like a junk store. We don't, I mean, you know, there are thrift stores. Have their place. I love a good thrift store.

11:16
Keith Poston
But we didn't want it to look like that. We wanted to be. These teachers are professionals. What were focused on was giving away brand new supplies, not used supplies, and we wanted it to feel that way. And so we had greeters that people walked in the door and they explained how it worked because everything is free, but it has point values because the teachers get a certain number of points to shop with every quarter. And so you get welcomed, you get a shopping basket, you sort of give the, get the explanation of how it all works. And then they essentially fill their basket up to the points that they have available. And then we have checkout stations with scan sheets and, you know, barcodes and we have, you know, people bagging their supplies and getting them on their way.

12:04
Keith Poston
So it's very much set up in a way that we can serve. When we're open. We'll serve about 60 teachers an hour. Yeah. So it can get busy. It can, I mean there have. And we've had a few snafus where like too many teachers came without appointments at the same time. And we, you know, we have a big line out the door, but we do a pretty good job of trying to keep it because we don't want people to have a bad experience. We want to have supplies on the shelves and we also want them to be able to get in and out without, you know, having to wait long.

12:39
Sophia Magnanini
100%. And that's so great, especially you mentioning the amount of work that you guys put into making sure that this feels very professional and also just in a way that they're being appreciated and they're being shown what you guys are doing is super important. And giving them those new materials as well is just really awesome and probably makes their days and their whole school years. Probably.

13:09
Keith Poston
No. And that's part of what we train. We are very volunteer dependent. I mean, we could not our organization, with all of our programs, we could not do what we do without volunteers. We have literally about, I don't know, three to 400 volunteers that are signed up to support tools for schools. We have a program that partners read that works in elementary schools. There's another couple hundred volunteers there. So like I said, we have about five actual staff people and we only have one staff person who is actually full time focused on tools for schools. So. But when we open the doors to serve teachers, we need to have about eight to 10 people working just for everything to work. So, you know, you have to have shifts and reliable people that will come in and show up and treat it like a job.

14:01
Keith Poston
And we train people. And again, part of that training is to make the teachers feel appreciated and welcomed. We have something we started about a year ago. We have companies that come in and we do like teacher appreciation tables and they can. Different stores and restaurants and things like that will come in and set up and just gives me. A lot of times it's snacks and food because, you know, the stores open in the afternoons after school's out, so it opens like at 4:00'. Clock. And so, you know, a lot of times teachers are coming in, they've already worked. They have. Maybe they have their kids with them. That's pretty common. And so, you know, just to have a little extra little snack, little sugar in there to, you know, to thank them or something to drink. We have music playing. It's a very.

14:50
Keith Poston
And then our volunteers, we. Again, it's a kind of. We try to make it very lively. We have a lot of high school students, juniors and seniors in high school who are volunteering here to get service hours. And those, you know, I call them kids. Those kids are great. I mean, they're a lot of them come in, they know each other. They. Maybe they go to Saints High School. We got music playing, they know how to, you know, they're very computer literate. So we don't have any problem in picking up, you know, some of the software that we have to use to ring up. And, you know, they'll quickly. Not only will they pick up everything, they'll be training other people when they come in. So it's a. It's. We couldn't do it without volunteers and.

15:34
Keith Poston
And that's certainly part of what the community does for us.

15:39
Sophia Magnanini
That kind of followed up into my next question. If you kind of wanted to go more into just how important it is for the Raleigh community and just also the local businesses and donors that are helping this program. Kind of what that means to you guys?

15:55
Keith Poston
Well, I mean, it's like I said, we could not, I mean, as a small nonprofit, first of all, we could not possibly afford to buy all the supplies. Like $230,000. I think the first year we raised about $100,000 in cash, you know, and financial donations. But some of that goes to buying supplies, but it also goes to paying, you know, our staff person who manages the store. It goes to buying, like we have to, you know, bag and stock things and having to buy supplies for the store. And so. But again, we still gave away overall, you know, over $230,000 of supply. So where did the rest of it come from? It comes from, you know, from donations. And we quickly figured out that if we were open all the time, I mean, we would be. We would.

16:51
Keith Poston
It wouldn't just put tools for schools out of business, it would put Wakehead Partnership out of business, but we couldn't possibly afford to stock it. That's our biggest challenge is right now is we would like to be open more. We have some ideas about expansion. There are other organizations that do similar things than we do that we have since gotten in touch with and worked with. But like I said, if we opened up every day at the beginning of the school year, we would be out, probably completely out of supplies within a month. So we have to manage it. So that one we don't. We can actually manage the crowd of teachers again. 10,000 Teachers trying to come here all the time, that's not going to work.

17:39
Keith Poston
And then if we're open every day, you know, and Saturdays, then we would run out of everything. So there are limits to what we can do. But we are definitely feeling a need and the teachers appreciate. But that's a big thing. It is as a nonprofit. We're a charity. I mean, we essentially rely on donations from individuals, from companies, from corporate foundations, from private foundations. We rely a lot on companies. After the first year we started doing, we did our first community wide supply drive after we first opened. We, about six months into it was the first summer. So that was in 2022. We did a supply drive and we recruited, I think we had maybe a dozen, like companies and organizations that hosted supply drives.

18:32
Keith Poston
Either random themselves within their businesses or they were drop-off locations where the community could go and take supplies. I mean, now we're up to like, well, you know, more than 100 of those running in the summertime. So we, once we get going, you know, we've got our own supply efforts going on that we're doing. We've got, you know, more than 100 companies that are out there running supply drives. They've got drop sites, you know, like we got. We got a partnership with Staples after our second year in operation. So not only have they financially supported us, they collect supplies in all of their stores in Wake county for us. And so when people are shopping for, you know, they're back to school.

19:19
Keith Poston
So it's all in the summertime first, over a couple of months in the summertime, when they're doing back to school shopping or just regular, there's a place they can say, hey, you know, you can pick up some supplies. They have our wish list and things that we need. And people, you make it easy. People will give. I mean, I think people in general are generous. This community wants to help. The Tools for School story is pretty simple to tell. And it really doesn't matter sort of what your political persuasion is or anything else. People kind of intuitively understand, like, wait, teachers have to buy this stuff themselves? That doesn't seem right. I mean, and you explain how much they spend and, you know, they'll open their wallets and they want to help whether it's buying things or making financial contributions.

20:07
Sophia Magnanini
That's so cool to just kind of see how quickly Tools for Schools has expanded in such a short time and how many people are now a part of it. And it's just really great seeing so many people and organizations come together for a common goal. And also, I can only imagine as, like, being a teacher and hearing about this, it would just be so, like, wonderful and awestruck that so many people are seeing the hardships that they have to follow and doing something to alleviate that.

20:46
Keith Poston
Yeah, some of it is educational for us in the community. That's part of what Wakehead Partnership's mission is. I do a lot of interviews like this one, and just to let people know that, hey, look, the state of North Carolina does not adequately fund our public schools. And so in things like school supplies, those budgets have been cut and cut over the last 15 years. And when the schools are underfunded, it affects a lot of things. It affects. Do you have enough school nurses, school psychologists? Do you have teachers, assistants and reading specialists? And yes, do they have enough school supplies? And so it gives us a chance. It sort of fits in our mission to educate. And if you advocate for the public schools and what the needs are, you know, we're involved in a.

21:35
Keith Poston
This is election season, and there's a school bond on the ballot in November. And that's another thing that we're talking about out in the public as an organization, not Tools for Schools, but Wakehead Partnership to say our schools have a lot of needs and they're not all met by government funding.

21:55
Sophia Magnanini
Going into that a little more, how do you think making sure. That teachers have these resources not only affects them, but affects students in the classroom. I know probably from just working with so many teachers, having your sister be a teacher, that you might be a little bit more knowledgeable about kind of the specifics.

22:15
Keith Poston
Well, I mean, it literally is. Do you have. We want the students to focus on learning, and we want the teachers to focus on teaching. That's what they're good at. That's why they're there. We don't want them worried, do they have the right resources, the right supplies to, you know, for the students to do their work? We don't want the students to not have what they need to do their homework or their work. So it really is about the tools that they need to do their job. But it is also fits into that big picture of, you know, you have to have a baseline of funding to make a school system and to fund us.

22:52
Keith Poston
This is one of the largest school systems in the country, where Wake County Public Schools, you know, with 160,000 students, it's the largest school district in North Carolina, but It's like the 13th largest district in the country. And so it takes a lot of money and resources to run this school district. I mean, you know, getting school students to school with transportation, you know, school lunches, all the other things outside of academics. But again, I think it's the community and the community support, like I think I mentioned some minute ago, you've got to have the right state level funding, which we don't. We, you know, we. That we do, if you want to call it lobbying, advocating, we definitely raise those issues too. But we also believe that for a public school system to truly be exceptional, we have a great school system here.

23:48
Keith Poston
But to be truly exceptional, you have to have more. You need to have more community support to help do the extra things above and beyond for your students. Whether that is, you know, I look at where we operate. We're right here in Research Triangle Park. There are jobs coming here. There's investment happening here. We want all of our students here to get those jobs, and so we want them to be prepared for those jobs. And so that might be. I mentioned at the very beginning, our roots came out of the business community in the chamber. Our board and most of our funders are corporate people. And so they want to hire people that are, you know, can fill the skills they need.

24:31
Keith Poston
So, you know, but those extra things above and beyond, it might be inviting having teachers coming in and learning, like, what are the skills that you're teaching that will be used in the, you know, in these jobs for students it might be they don't even have any idea what jobs are out there. Right. I mean they kind of have a, maybe have a vague sense, depends on what their families do. But you know, there's just so many companies that are creating and doing and serving all courts of ways and if you've never been exposed to it or seen it, you might not even know how to get, you know, how do you even start like what do you need to take?

25:11
Keith Poston
What classes do you need to take in high school so that you're eligible, you know, to get into a community college or a university? You know, it's, there's nothing sadder than a student who is smart enough but didn't really plan ahead and all of a sudden they've graduated from high school and they can't get in to Wake Tech, you know, or NC State or California because they don't have the right classes on their transcript. So those kinds of extra things that you would think would be kind of basic, you know, where they, the schools needs more support to sort of do those extra things for students.

25:48
Sophia Magnanini
That is just such great points that you just brought up because it's so much more than just having the right resources in the classroom and tools in the classroom. It's building those up so then we can build the students up. And it's so important because these teachers and these students, these teachers are creating the next kind of generation of people that are going to be coming into the workforce and if they don't have the right resources, it's really an obstacle for a lot of students to have to deal with as well as.

26:25
Keith Poston
Wake County Public Schools is one of the leaders in the state in like early college high schools that we have here. I know there's one over at NC State. You got specialized early colleges that are focused on like you know, health careers. You've got some that are focused on agricultural science. You know, there are companies in the park that like say hey we would like to, you know, we're seeing a shortage in these spaces. Is this something that we can work with you know, to sort of create whether it's investing in labs or opportunities for the students, partnering with Wake Tech to put together a actual training curriculum. It's one thing I, you know, I've appreciate that has changed a lot.

27:08
Keith Poston
When I was coming along it was like if you were going to go to college like you went to college, it was like a four year college and you know, community college was like sort of A trade school, like, if you're going to some, you know, trade. But there was sort of this gap. College has gotten so expensive now. You know, my daughter is a professional now, but she just graduated from, you know, college and law school just a few a couple years ago. So many of her friends start out like, all right, I'm going to go here, then I'm going to go to community college for the first couple years and get some of our bases.

27:40
Keith Poston
There's so many partnerships between the colleges and the community colleges and save some money and then go into one of these programs that I'll be guaranteed a job right out of school. So this sounds like a long ways away from tools for schools and giving away crayons and pencils, but it's really not, because, you know, first of all, it's not just elementary school. Some of our biggest shoppers are high school teachers. So there's a lot of. It's not just crayons. It's headphones and all sorts of materials that they need to use. Dry erase markers and whiteboards and things of that, you know, we're seeing more and more need for, you know, digital learning. But, you know, it all feeds in together.

28:24
Keith Poston
I mean, if the students don't get a proper grounding in reading and math in the early grades, first through third grade, you find that some kids just stay behind, you know, so we look at everything we do as our focus is on the teachers, on the students. Are we doing things that can help them excel? I mean, I think all of us, as a parent, as a dad, myself, you know, you always want your child to do better than you did. And that's. That's gotten harder in a lot of ways. And so, you know, anything we can do to sort of help a family, you know, realize that kind of dream, that's what we wanted.

29:05
Sophia Magnanini
That is so true as well. Even though you guys focus on helping teachers, it affects teachers, it affects students, it affects the families. So it really has such a broad reach to the whole Raleigh community. And so it's such an impactful thing, what you guys are doing. And yeah, like you said earlier, also, the teachers should focus on teaching and the students should focus on learning. And so once they're given those resources that they can just focus on their roles. It creates just kind of a chain reaction that can do so many great things.

29:45
Keith Poston
Yeah, Well, I do want to talk about where we're going, because this is something that I think the community can. You know, first of all, I want to make sure. And I should have said at the very beginning, you can find us at wakeed.org and look up tools for schools. And on that page we have our most needed items that we need. We raise money and take supplies year round. We have an Amazon wish list that people can donate through that, which makes it super easy. We run school supply drives and other things year round. But also you can, you know, there are places on there to volunteer. So Again, go to wakeed.org and look for tools for schools. And if you want to help out, you can find other ways.

30:27
Keith Poston
But you know, looking ahead, I mentioned at the very beginning, we would like to be able to be open more. We would like to have more supplies. Our biggest limit is not having enough supplies. We're having enough staff and resources to be able to be open more. You know, we're over here on Capitol Boulevard, you know, fairly central in Wake county, but it's still a long drive if you're in, you know, Wake Forest or if you are in Fuquay. And you know, we would like to figure out ways to extend our reach further out into the community. We have discussed having a mobile tools for schools where we could say go over to East Wake or go to a certain school. Certain schools and have supplies available there.

31:15
Keith Poston
Some of our other organizations that run these kinds of programs have ways for teachers to shop online, to shop as. Like right now teachers have to come individually. But we are right now actually trying to figure out how to allow like a teacher or say a PTA head to come in and shop for, you know, a dozen teachers. And so they don't have to take, they don't have to come over here. And so how can we make it easier for them to get the supplies they need?

31:51
Sophia Magnanini
And that's so great that you guys are already thinking about these things and have these different goals for the future to just make this program more accessible, more reachable for all types of teachers and schools. And so once again, yeah, I feel like I've been repeating myself a lot, but it's just so great what you guys do for the whole Raleigh community, Wake county community.

32:20
Keith Poston
I love what I look, I love what I do here. And Tools for Schools is my favorite program that we run because the teachers need it. I feel like I'm serving in need. I say this all the time. I have the best job in Raleigh because I get to come to work every day and get paid to do it to support teachers and students. And I'm a public school kid from Fayetteville, you know, and like, I Said my sister was a teacher, my mom was a teacher's assistant, my father in law was a shop teacher. And most of us have a teacher in our family in our meaning. And so I feel like I'm giving back. And even to get a little more philosophical, things are hard right now. There's a lot going on in the world and in this country.

33:03
Keith Poston
And I think whether you're volunteering or you're working for a nonprofit directly like I am, sometimes it just feels good to feel like you're making a difference, even if it's in your own.

33:14
Sophia Magnanini
Little, you know, corner of the world, 100%. And I can only imagine just how it makes the teachers feel as well. And it's just such a great program. And I'm really excited to see what you guys do over the years as you grow and kind of reach those next goals and then create new ones.

33:37
Keith Poston
Yeah, well, we've grown as we've grown faster than we expected and we expect to keep growing. So it's just a matter of, you know, we have to do a better job. That's what happens on the back end is like we have to keep raising money and create more opportunities for people to give and spread the word about what we're doing. And so all that takes time and money. And you know, that's what we do is if, you know, it can help the schools we want to do,.

34:01
Sophia Magnanini
It is it and it's just so great. And I feel like everyone should kind of have that mentality wherever they are or for kind of any topic at all. Just helping others is so great and just so needed.

34:18
Keith Poston
And if people want to get involved in any way, like we are open year round, the store is open during the school year, but then we run our big school supply drive during the summertime. So basically we've got things going on all the time. The holidays are coming up, so we're going to be doing. Last year we did our first angel trees tied to school supplies. And so we're always looking for creative ways. This summer for the first time, we had a competition among people that were running supply drives and had them get points for how many things they collected. And then we, you know, we're going to be honoring and recognizing our valedictorian and the different levels at our upcoming STARS Gala in November. So there is still more to come. Absolutely.

35:06
Sophia Magnanini
And I love to hear it and everyone listening. If you're interested in volunteering, please do or please just spread what schools spread, what tools for schools. Sorry, it's like a tongue twister does. It's just so great. And I just want to thank you again so much for taking the time out of your day to meet with me and tell me about all the great that you guys do.

35:33
Keith Poston
Well, thank you. So appreciate it.

35:35
Sophia Magnanini
As we end our chat, I just want to thank you all for listening and I want to thank Keith for coming in. It was such a great conversation and Tools for Schools is so important, so amazing and has such a big impact on the whole community. So please, whoever is listening and is interested, go check those out. Follow the links that he says. I'll put them in the description and just. Yeah. Thank you guys all for listening to Oak City Move. I'm your host, Sophia Magnanini, and if you're interested in listening to this episode again or to past episodes of the show, you can go to wknc.org/podcast and make sure to tune into our show every other Monday on WKNC 88.1 FM Raleigh. Have a great day, guys.