Educational equity
We believe that access to quality school supplies is the first step in addressing educational inequities and helping students reach their fullest academic potential.
About The Re-Write It Project
The Re-Write It Project (RWIP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in Chicago by high schoolers to address unequal access to basic school supplies.
What sets our organization apart from others is that we are a student-led nonprofit. The RWIP was founded by high schoolers in 2020, and has maintained high school leadership throughout.
Our mission
Our mission is to provide underserved students around Chicago with access to quality learning resources imperative to unlocking their fullest academic potential. We aim to reduce educational inequities by combating systemic influences that impede student access to essential supplies.
By refurbishing used materials into quality supplies and supply kits for students, we apply environmentally sustainable practices to rewrite the narrative surrounding worn supplies. Our goal is to empower students to explore their creative outlets and tap into the powerful instrument of education. Our dedicated high school chapters carry out the collection and refurbishing process by taking the initiative to repurpose and renew these materials for a meaningful cause.
Our core values
Sustainability
We collect used supplies, refurbish them, and distribute supply kits to elementary schools. This system promotes sustainable practices and ensures no good supplies go to waste.
Student leadership
Our central leadership team is made up entirely of college and high school students, so the whole organization is run by the same young people doing the on the ground work.
Community
We deliberately match every chapter’s distribution to an elementary school in its own community, so students see firsthand that volunteer work is happening right in their own neighborhood.
How chapters function
Our dedicated high school chapters carry out the collection and refurbishing process.
Collect
Students set up collections at school or in the local community. We collect new and gently used school supplies.
Refurbish
Supplies are refurbished during club time. Students sharpen pencils and make sure all the pens in a pack work.
Sort
Supplies are sorted and made into kits. If a collection comes up short on a specific supply, we supplement it so the distribution is complete.
Distribute
Students personally deliver what they’ve collected to an elementary school partner nearby.
Our founding
The RWIP was founded by high schoolers in 2020, and has maintained high school leadership throughout.
2020
Finding a use for supplies left behind
Four Chicago high school students founded The Re-Write It Project in August 2020 after seeing how unequal access to learning resources affected students during the pandemic.
Recognizing the irony of school supplies wasted annually while many Chicagoland communities lacked quality materials, the founders launched the initiative to bridge this gap.
Meet our student team
Books and school supplies collected for reuse. Today
Students carry the work into their schools
Today, student-led chapters collect, refurbish, and distribute supplies in their own communities. Our Chapter Management Team supports chapter leaders and works with community partners to match supplies with local needs.
The project has now distributed 18,576 school supply kits. Chapters continue to collect usable materials and work with schools and youth organizations to get them to students.
Start a chapter at your school
Chapter volunteers sorting and packing supplies.
Start a chapter
Organize a collection at your school with support from our chapter team.