About 10k Pencils
We are a St Louis, Missouri based organization dedicated to ensuring that children have the minimum resources needed to enable learning to take place. These resources include note books, paper, pencils, erasers, crayons, glue, markers, and even additional clothing sourced from the school lost and found.
Being environmentally conscious we are recycling and upcycling stationery supplies from donations for those in need within the US and internationally.
Board of Directors
Helen Humphrey (Founder and Executive Director)
Cris Handel (Secretary and Board Member)
Claudia Smith (Board Member)
McKenzie Stroot (Board Member)
Our Story
10,000 Pencils developed out of an initial project which involved recycling stationery supplies from an elementary school in Chesterfield, Missouri, which were then distributed to a school in Lusaka, Zambia. The purpose of the project was not only to recycle school supplies but also to create a learning opportunity for the children on both continents.
The initial project included teams from the two schools, a corporate partner and a shipping company. This team worked for a period of 8 months to ensure that the donation process and ultimate handover was a success.
After the successful completion of the initial donation, the question arose of ‘what’s next’? There was significant interest during the first process from others – corporates, parents, schools – which stimulated the interest in setting up an organization which could more broadly assist underprivileged learners and schools both locally and internationally.
Through this interest and support, 10,000 Pencils was created as a registered non profit (501 (c) 3) in order to be able to work with local and international schools to enable learners to have the resources needed for their education.
In 2017, we worked with 4 schools in Chesterfield to collect donations and these donations have been redistributed locally in St Louis, Mo as well as internationally.
In 2018, the collection drive was expanded to 7 schools within the Parkway School District and these supplies are sorted and distributed to local and international children and teachers in need.
We are again looking to expand the number of donor schools in order to serve an ever-expanding number of requests for assistance both locally as well as internationally.