Law enforcement joins forces to collect school supplies

State, local and federal law enforcement agencies across the state are again joining forces to collect donations of new backpacks and school supplies to help school children in Rhode Island through the Kids, Cops, and Classrooms project.

The Rhode Island State Police, the Rhode Island Police Chiefs’ Association, the Rhode Island Department of Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Rhode Island will accept donations at state police barracks, local police departments and other offices across the state. These will be distributed to local agencies that work with disadvantaged families throughout the state.

The goal of Kids, Cops, and Classrooms is to help ease the financial burden many families face when it comes to providing their children with the school supplies they need, while also teaching children that law enforcement officers are their friends and are in their communities to help.

“With communities facing increasingly tighter budgets, families are being asked to provide more school supplies for their children and their classrooms than ever before, which poses a tremendous financial burden on families struggling just to make ends meet,” said Rhode Island State Police Major Christopher Dicomitis, who’s leading this year’s Kids, Cops and Classrooms campaign. “We hope the backpacks and supplies we collect through this program will help ease some of this burden for many of these families, while providing children with the school supplies they need to succeed.”

These are some of the supplies being sought through the Kids, Cops, and Classrooms campaign include backpacks, pencils, pens, crayons, notebooks, binders, index cards, planners, rulers, highlighters, coloring paper, glue and loose-leaf paper.

Donations may be brought to any State Police barracks or local police department. They will be given to the following agencies for distribution to families: Crossroads Rhode Island; Family Service of Rhode Island; Project Night Vision; Children’s Friend; the Hispanic Ministerial Association of Rhode Island; Multi-Service Center for All; African Alliance; Mount Hope Neighborhood Association; Chad Brown Alumni Association; and the Center for Southeast Asians.