Florida teachers and students are heading back to school with a little extra pixie dust from Disney VoluntEARS!
Walt Disney World just wrapped up its biggest VoluntEARS event of the summer: the Back-to-School Supply Drive. Over 200 cast members gathered at ESPN Wide World of Sports to celebrate another successful drive and sort through the more than 135,000 supplies being donated to A Gift for Teaching.
A Gift for Teaching is a nonprofit in Central Florida that helps provide free school supplies to teachers and students. Disney is one of the nonprofit’s longest and largest supporters, teaming up for more than 25 years to support individuals and families in Orange, Osceola, Lake, Seminole, and Polk Counties.
On top of the school supplies donated by cast members, Disney is making an extra monetary donation that equates to about 360,000 school supplies. This joins the $500,000 donation the resort made earlier this summer to help fund local education programs.
“My mother was a teacher for over 40 years, and I know how hard it was for her to get supplies for her kids,” said Jeff Ault, Resort Concierge at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort. “Being able to support teachers when they give so much to students is great!”
For Jeff, volunteering and supporting teachers is a family affair. His mom is still an active volunteer with A Gift for Teaching, and his dad is a former cast member who brought Jeff along to VoluntEARS events growing up.
“It’s just what my family did,” said Jeff. “Now as a cast member, I get to combine my two passions during the Back-to-School Supply Drive every year!”
The summer at Walt Disney World was filled with other Disney VoluntEARS and community events just like the Back-to-School Supply Drive — from surprising teachers with park tickets to enjoy Cool Kid Summer, hosting students at Typhoon Lagoon for The World’s Largest Swimming Lesson and more. And with the holidays right around the corner, extra magic is on the way as Disney World gears up to celebrate the season of giving with Central Florida.