Lorain’s Garfield Elementary School Principal John Monteleone should be commended for creating a resource room for parents of students who may need a little extra help.
In early November, Garfield Elementary, located at 200 W. 31st St., established the resource room and stocked it with all kinds of supplies such as nonperishable food, clothing and other items for parents and families.
About five years ago, Monteleone toured a few schools around the country and observed that many of them included spaces for parents with washers and dryers, as well as other amenities.
After visiting schools in Columbus, Ohio, and Nashville, Tenn., Monteleone was inspired to create a similar space at Garfield.
Monteleone wanted a place where parents of students who needed a little assistance could go and get those essential needs and food items to help the family.
Monteleone had a vision to eliminate difficult choices that parents should never have to make.
Rather than choosing to put food on the table or gasoline in the car, the hope is that the resource room allows them to do both.
After the school tours, Monteleone had a space in mind for the resource room.
Garfield’s storage room was a perfect fit, and the school had a relatively easy time finding partners to help stock the shelves.
Monteleone said the past two years have been the perfect storm for the opportunity to create the resource room, especially, since House of Praise International Church, 4321 Elyria Ave., adopted Garfield.
The Jiffy Group is the other partner that put in a hefty order of nonperishable items at Sam’s Club, and had them delivered to Garfield.
Through volunteer work from both the House of Praise and The Jiffy Group, Monteleone’s plan quickly came to fruition.
Then, it became a matter of connecting the school with parents in need.
Monteleone imagined a place where parents could order items from the privacy of their own home in a dignified and discreet manner.
It is similar to online shopping at Amazon, eBay and other sites such as Instacart where people can order groceries.
Monteleone credits Lorain City Schools Assistant Superintendent Ross May with creating the online ordering system for the resource room.
The ordering system is intuitive and uses Google forms and a spreadsheet to make sure parents get what they need.
The objective is by Thanksgiving, parents can go online and order like they would at the online outlets, whether it’s a bar of soap, a jacket for their child for the winter, or groceries just to get them through the week.
The resource room is ready, but far from a finished product.
Garfield would like to partner with more organizations around Lorain to supply perishable food items a few times a month.
Monteleone believes expanding the resource room’s reach is endless and would love for it to grow where people outside of the Garfield community can use it.
The resource room is a unique concept, and more school districts would do well to implement something similar.
For one thing, the Garfield resource room is within walking distance for some parents to pickup the items, especially if transportation is a barrier.
But, Garfield is not the first school to offer a resource room in Northeast Ohio.
In 2022, the Maple Heights City School District opened a resource room for families that needed a little extra.
The Maple Heights City Schools resource room was designed to assist families in need within the community with clothing, household goods, canned food and other essential items.
Maple Heights families can access the resource room by contacting school counselors, principals, building secretaries or by completing the referral form located on the district’s website.
As for food, Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio has the School Pantry Program, which is designed to ensure every child has the food they need to grow and thrive by creating food security for the entire family.
In partnership with local school districts, Second Harvest can increase the amount of food families have on-hand by hosting monthly pantries with a nutritious assortment of shelf-stable food, produce, bread, refrigerated and frozen foods at various sites throughout its service area of Lorain, Erie, Huron and Crawford counties.
Second Harvest administration staff, district social workers, teachers, students and parents provide guidance and volunteers for each distribution — welcoming families onto school grounds.
Garfield and Monteleone deserve credit for this resource room to help families that need a little bit more in a dignified way.
