The saying “a gift that keeps on giving” was a mantra that was recently carried out in Greene County.

Audrey Hinote is the Greene County Elementary School Principal and says all of the student seating was brand new going into this school year. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that after touring the elementary building, it was discovered that there were 13 different styles of student chairs, since the structure first opened in the 1990s. Superintendent Brett Abbotts explains that replacing the chairs is the first in a multiple-year phase project to eventually replace all of the furniture in the building. He says the student chairs needed to be the top priority.

“It’s kind of like that, ‘If you look good, you feel good, and you play good.’ So maybe if we have nicer furniture that’s all consistent, it’s the same brand, color, material, make and model sort of thing, it adds just another layer of confidence for kids, it adds another layer of, I’ll use the word, appreciation I guess, with our teachers. That they have a nice space to be able to walk into, that they don’t walk into eight different styles of chairs and seven different styles of desks.”

A lot of those chairs were donated to Midwest Mission, where Iowa Public Relations Coordinator Danille Curtis says they are partnered with other non-profit organizations around the globe to utilize the 1,000 chairs. She notes that some were shipped to Honduras most recently. She expresses that the mission of their organization is to send hope and empowerment around the world and around the corner. One of those ways is with education being a key to improving a child’s circumstances, as they need the tools to set them up for success.

Curtis explains that these chairs will be used in other schools to help build a better future for the students and they are happy to rescue the chairs from the elementary school and are blessed that they could work with the school district to make that happen.