Public school teachers, national education analysts say, spend an average of almost $480 of their own money each school year on classroom supplies, including books, snacks, pencils, paper and cleaning products. An analysis of current needs predicts that out-of-pocket number will soar to more than $820 per teacher.

Teachers who itemize on their tax return are allowed to deduct up to $300 in out-of-pocket expenses, which still doesn’t cover their outlay.

The Sallisaw Pastors Fellowship, working with area churches and the business community, has stepped up to ease the financial burden for teachers in Sallisaw and Central schools.

“As you know, they have budgets for those things, and the principals, I feel like they do a good job of trying to give the teachers that budget for things for their classroom. But teachers, like anybody who does anything they love, they go out and spend their own money on things they need for the classroom, and that is the heart of a teacher,” says Austin Carrigan, co-senior pastor at United Faith Church and a member of the Sallisaw Pastors Fellowship.

“You hardly ever hear them complain about it. You just hear them, ‘Yeah, you know, I had to go get stuff …’ I was speaking with one of the principals, and he said, ‘We try to give them a budget with the budget we have so that they can have supplies,’ but, he said, ‘I know they go out and buy things.’ That’s, I believe, a teacher’s heart. It’s more than just a 9 to 5, clock in, clock out,” Carrigan says.

So Sallisaw Pastors Fellowship went about soliciting donations from local churches and businesses to help local teachers.

A year ago, almost $14,000 was raised, which resulted in each teacher receiving a $70 Visa gift card, and all support staff — cafeteria workers, office personnel, teacher’s aides, bus drivers, etc. — receiving a $10 eat-out gift card.

This year, the pastors fellowship raised almost $17,000.

“We were able to give each teacher — and we did that hand out Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week — we were able to give each teacher an $80 Walmart gift card, and we were able to give all the support staff a gift card. Actually, we received so many gift cards, many of the support staff got two gift cards. So we had great support from the community,” Carrigan says.

In addition, members of the pastors fellowship presented the teachers with their gift card in a custom-made card bearing Scriptural encouragement from 1 Peter 4:10 — “God has given you a gift from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another.”

“As a pastors fellowship, we were able to get into the school and speak to the teachers about what we believe the Bible says about the gifts that God has put into them as teachers,” Carrigan says. “So we were able to encourage them that they have a gift from God, and that’s why they teach, and they are using it to serve one another and serve the students. So we see it as a good opportunity to go into the schools and speak to them, and also, we’re able to say a prayer over them and over the schools, just blessing the school year, [and] ask the Lord to lead them and bring peace into all the schools and guidance for the school year.

“We want to partner with the schools, as a fellowship, but also with the community, and I was really pleased with all the businesses and churches that contributed this year.

“All the churches were able to come together and work in unity, in this effort. And then all the businesses that came beside us, I was encouraged by it, and would like the community to be encouraged by it as well,” Carrigan says.

The Sallisaw Pastors Fellowship is comprised of churches from all denominations. Any church wanting to be part of the Sallisaw Pastors Fellowship should call Carrigan at 918-7740670.

The pastors fellowship is involved in four major annual campaigns:

• A back-to-school outreach that provides gift cards to teachers and support staff to purchase needed classroom items

• A Christmas outreach (Angel Tree) which provides area families with a meal basket and children with gifts

• A community Thanksgiving service the Sunday evening before Thanksgiving, hosted at different churches

• Holy Week services, which starts with a Palm Sunday service, and lunch services throughout the week at different churches