The Cincinnati Area Chapter of the American Red Cross is doing its part to help send school and recreational supplies to Afghanistan for at least 80,000 Afghan schoolchildren, and it is asking area schools and organizations to help.

        It's part of a national Red Cross initiative to collect 2,000 “school chests,” filled with school and recreational supplies, which will each serve about 40 students living in that embattled country.

        The goal is to send the school chests to Afghanistan by May 8.

        Vince Costello, director of international services for the American Red Cross, said for the first time in years school was held Saturday for children in Afghanistan.

        The American Red Cross, Mr. Costello said, “wants to give those students the same opportunity that all students should have to learn.”

        Each school chest will be filled with: notebooks or notepads; No. 2 pencils, unsharpened, with erasers; small pencil sharpeners; metric or metric/inch rulers; small geometry safety compasses; boxes of colored chalk; blackboard erasers; drawing paper; boxes of eight crayons; a tape measurer; one deflated soccer ball; one 8- to 12-inch standard air pump with needle; and jump ropes.

        Schools and organizations can bring chests filled with school supplies to the following Red Cross offices (supplies for the chests should not be brought to the Red Cross) :

        • Downtown, 720 Sycamore St.

        • Blue Ash, 10870 Kenwood Road.

        • Florence., 75 Cavalier St., Suite 111-115.

        • Clermont County, 4530 Eastgate Blvd., Summerside.

-->         Spokeswoman Sandra Guile said supplies should be new, clean and of good quality, and the Red Cross asks that letters or notes not be included because of language barriers. For information, call 579-3000.

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