Through its CARE (Children at Risk in Education) program, Fayette County Public Schools has been meeting the needs of struggling students and their families for many years by providing necessities such as clothing, bedding, toiletries, shoes, cleaning supplies, hearing aid batteries, and groceries.

The CARE program has relied on community and staff donations to fulfill these needs. Now, thanks to a new app called Purposity, anyone, anywhere can directly meet the need of a student.   

School counselors and social workers will use the Purposity app to enter the needs of students, and then notify the community to help meet those needs. In order for the school system to start posting needs to the app, 500 followers are needed. All that the public has to do is download the app from the App Store or Google Play to their mobile phone and select to follow Fayette County Public Schools. Once the school system starts posting to the app, followers will receive weekly notifications with a link to a story about a student in need and how they can help.

Requested items are purchased directly through the app and shipped to the school system in just a few days, and then distributed to students by their school counselors and social workers.

“Our CARE program has supported students in need for many years, including coordinating an annual holiday Angel Tree project,” says Audrey Toney, director of student services for the school system. “With the retirement of the key person who oversaw the CARE program, we needed to find a way to easily reach community members who want to help our students, and through careful research, we discovered the Purposity app.”

Purposity is an Atlanta-based nonprofit whose mission is to connect people in need with those who can help, and accomplish this mission through an app that makes it easy for neighbors to help neighbors.

School systems throughout Georgia and around the nation are using the Purposity app to help meet the needs of struggling students and their families who are having difficulty making ends meet due to a variety of issues such as illness, loss of income, change in family dynamics, or a catastrophe like a fire or weather-related damage.  

Since Purposity is a nonprofit, all items purchased through the app are tax deductible.