3M supplies.

Nearly a dozen eastern Iowa schools have picked up about 900 pounds of donated school supplies from the 3M company’s plant in the Quad Cities.

Susan Wheeler, an engineer at the plant, is a member of the 3-M Club that organizes the give-away. She says employees nominated the schools getting free classroom supplies of glue sticks, Post-It notes, Scotch tape and other items.

“As you know, school funding hasn’t really increased over the years and a lot of the teachers buy the supplies themselves,” she says, “so this is one way for 3M to support the community — and we support a lot of communities.”

The program started in 2015. In previous years, school officials could go to the 3M warehouse in Cordova, Illinois to pick up supplies. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 3M employees packaged up the items. Each school got two, 40-pound bags of supplies. About 80 schools in eastern Iowa and western Illinois are benefiting from this year’s give-away. The Iowa schools include Clinton, Camanche, LeClaire, Bettendorf, Davenport, Buffalo, Preston, Miles, DeWitt, Muscatine and Goose Lake.

(Story and photo by Dave Vickers, KROS, Clinton)