Florida teacher Kelli Cameron and hew new husband Matt collected school supplies for needy students instead of traditional wedding gifts.
I have often said that school teachers are the backbone of our communities. Here is another example that proves this is true. Kelli Cameron, a first grade teacher, who just happens to be a new bride, and her husband Matt, asked their wedding guests to donate school supplies to needy students instead of buying them traditional wedding gifts.
Kelli teaches at Roland Park K-8 Magnet School in the Hillsborough County Public School District located in Tampa, Florida. When she and Matt got engaged last summer, the couple decided they didn’t really need anything to begin their married life together. Since the students at her school weren’t in need of supplies, she reached out to nearby Booker T. Washington Elementary School. Teachers there gave Kelli a list of items that would benefit their students. The list included everything from notebooks and glue sticks to socks and underwear. Kelli and Matt then created a registry on Amazon, and the donations began rolling in.
“It wasn’t much different than going online and making a [wedding] registry,” Matt Cameron remarked. “Instead of crock pots, it was Sharpies and T-shirts and khaki shorts,” he said. “I’m not surprised at all that she thought of this and went into it so passionately, because that’s what she does every day.”
By the time the couple married on June 8 at the Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in Tampa, Florida, Kelli and Matt had filled 70 donated backpacks with school supplies to distribute to Washington Elementary’s students for the new school year.
“Being a teacher, I put my heart and soul into the kids, and you try and give and give to them,” Kelli expressed. “How wonderful it was that we were able to do that, take something that was about us and help others,” she continued. “The kids who get the backpacks will be excited for that first day of school, and excited that they have that new backpack and new supplies, and are ready to start the school year,” she concluded.
