Los Lunas students to receive free school supplies

LOS LUNAS, N.M. – All 8,000 students in the Los Lunas School District will get free school supplies this coming school year.

“Their basic school supplies for the classroom will be provided by the school district,” said Deborah Elder, interim superintendent of Los Lunas Public Schools.

Elder says they want to help ease the financial burden of back to school for families.

“We were able to do it financially this year, so that we are able to purchase school supplies this year for our students,” said Elder. 

It starts with the essentials.

“It’s going to vary school by school because they have constructed their own list, but it’s your basics. It’s your pencils, it’s your pens, it’s your markers, your crayons,” Elder said. 

Keep in mind, this does not include backpacks, lunch bags, or water bottles.

Elder says this is the first time they provide schools supplies, but doesn’t know if they’ll be able to continue in the future.

“There’s no guarantee that we’ll have the resources to do it every year going forward, but we figured we can do it this year. And we want to, so we will,” said Elder. 

But where is the funding coming from? 

“A good amount of it is coming from the federal COVID relief funds,” Elder said. “The intent of those funds is to help communities work through the post-COVID burdens. So knowing that inflation has increased, everything is more expensive now, and we’re still not completely stabilized post-COVID.”

Elder says when students don’t have supplies, it’s the employees that tend to step in. She says they hope this will help both students and staff.

“This is a great opportunity to help our community and to help our kids, and help our staff,” said Elder.