LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN)- Pencils, notebooks and crayons are not the only things that schools need to kick off the school year and a Facebook page of local business owners gathered to help bridge that gap.

The Stock Our Classrooms craft and vendor show opened its doors today to do just that.

Inside the Cornhusker Social Hall located just off of 27th and Cornhusker highway, the event was headed by three local business owners.

Breanna Greenwalt, Danielle DuSchene and Pam Wilson-Mollo all joined forces to help out local elementary schools, Everett and McPhee.

The three event hosts weren’t the only ones participating as many of the small business owners in the Lincoln area came together to show their support for the public school system.

From woodworking to homemade jewelry, business owners lined the tables of the Social Hall to peddle their goods to help raise awareness for the supply issue, and also help get their name out there as well.

“I’ve been helping to host shows for about 4 years and I met Pam and Danielle through shows and we kind of teamed up,” Greenwalt said. “It’s a lot of work so it helps to have as many hands as you can.”

With the price of school supplies rising it’s been hard for Lincoln Public Schools to provide everything its students may need with teachers occasionally paying out of pocket to keep supplies, especially cleaning products stocked up.

“[Donating] takes some of the weight off the teachers too, because then they are not paying out of pocket for simple things like Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, tissues, simple things like that,” Greenwalt said.

She said that even if you couldn’t make it out to support the community today, you can still do your part throughout the upcoming school year.

“Any time you feel the pull if you’re at Costco, Walmart, grab yourself tissues, Clorox wipes, anything you imagine what a teacher might need with sneezing kids running around, and just drop it off at your local school, they would really appreciate it, you don’t need to do any huge gesture,” Greenwalt said.

The donations continued into the night with a quarter auction that started at 6 P.M.

All items that were bet on in the raffles went toward the budget to fill the two supported schools with the supplies to start the school year off well equipped.

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