Local Girl Calling On Twin Cities To Donate School Supplies

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Remember the game "Simon Says?" This morning, a local girl is saying give. A local student is calling on the entire Twin Cities metro to help make sure thousands of children are ready for the first day of school.

And back to school is creeping up on us as the month of August is inching closer. Mandi Simon will turn 10 on Saturday, but when she was 7 years old she decided she wanted to help her community. Her way of doing that was through donating school supplies.

She said with her birthday being in August, it's close to school starting and she thought some kids might need supplies or backpacks. With that inspiration, she started the company "Simon Says Give." It was a passion and a dream of Mandi's, something her mother said she had to stick with.

The goal this year is to collect 1,000 backpacks that are fully loaded with supplies for students in Kindergarten and all the way through 12th grade. They're looking for backpacks filled with notebooks, pens, pencils and other school supplies for the every day student.

They said as many as 8,000 students need donations like this so they're ready for school in the fall. There are "Simon Says Give" boxes placed throughout the Twin Cities metro as they're working with three different local organizations for donations. About 100 local companies do private donations for "Simon Says Give," and a few locations locally are also doing public donations.