TrueGift Donations Begins Fourth Year of Giving Free School Supplies to Teachers

TrueGift Donations announces the beginning of its fourth school year of giving free school school supplies to teachers in the fifty United States. TrueGift Donations is a unique charity that enables parents and donors to directly improve their local schools and communities. TrueGift provides basic school supplies such as pencils, crayons, and scissors.

Saratoga, CA (PRWEB) August 25, 2004 -- TrueGift Donations is a small charity started by three brothers: Charles Merriam, Marshal Merriam, and Hugh Merriam. Teachers from public schools and non-profit private or charter schools teaching children from kindergarten to the twelfth grade may sign up for free school supplies on its website. Teachers may now sign up for school supplies for the 2004 to 2005 school year. Supplies will start being delivered to schools in early September, 2004.

The charity is a labor of love, remarkable both in making an insanely efficient charity, and in providing donors direct control over their donations. For efficiency, TrueGift has no paid employees or board members, uses the Internet instead of office space, and purchases school supplies during annual back-to-school sales. For control, donors can choose which classrooms to support and can bypass TrueGift Donations by donating directly to the school.

Teachers sign up on the website at www.truegift.com. They post their 'gift list': a list of supplies the teacher needs to teach our children. Each donor can choose what schools and classroom are most important. A parent might donate to his or her children's schools, only to poorer elementary schools, or only science classes. If they donate money to us, we use it to purchase supplies and ship them as they request. Alternately, anyone may read our gift registry, buy supplies for any classroom, and ship the supplies themselves. Because we only list public and non-profit schools, the donations are generally tax-deductible.", says Charles Merriam, a founder of TrueGift Donations.

TrueGift Donations is actively soliciting for more money to purchase additional school supplies. All donations are used for the purchase and shipment of basic school supplies; the founders pay for TrueGift Donations' overhead. This year has been especially bad for schools. The 'No Child Left Behind Act' is requiring schools to spend a lot of money with no new funding. Coupled with lower sales tax revenues from a sluggish economy, many schools are choosing to cut spending on school supplies rather than lay off teachers.", says Charles Merriam. Donations can be made to TrueGift Donations, 18366 Vanderbilt Drive, Saratoga, CA 95070. Donors can include specific instructions as to what classrooms, schools, or criteria should be used in providing school supplies.

TrueGift Donations is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization (IRS ID#77-0554014) incorporated in California. Teachers of public and non-profit K-12 schools in the fifty United States may sign up for supplie now. Supplies will begin shipping in early September 2004.

For more information about this press release, contact Charles Merriam, President and Founder, by phone 408 368 6050, email press@truegift.com, or visit the website at http://www.truegift.com . TrueGift is based in Saratoga, California.

For More Information:

Charles Merriam, Founder & President

Phone: 408 368 6050

Fax: 408 904 6075

Email: press@truegift.com

Website: http://www.truegift.com

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