It's tough trying to teach a child when his stomach's growling. Or when she can't afford notebooks or pens or backpacks.

Elementary school teachers Roxie Griffin and Angela Ross have spent hundreds of dollars of their own money over the years on school supplies for needy kids.

Mikki K. Harris/mkharris@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Shana Miller-Boyd (left) gathers school supplies at the Atlanta Community Food bank as part of the Kids in Need program, which started 10 years ago when a home and office supply trade show was looking to get rid of leftover display items.

Mikki K. Harris/Staff (ENLARGE)

'This is just awesome,' said fifth-grade teacher Michele Nowellas she loaded her cart.

This week, Griffin and Ross got a big boost in their back-to-school preparations from an unusual source: the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

With school starting as early as next week in the metro area, Griffin and Ross were among 40 metro Atlanta teachers stocking up on hundreds of dollars of free school supplies at the food bank's downtown Atlanta warehouse.

Teachers were given a clipboard, a shopping cart and 30 minutes in what can only be described as the ultimate teacher's supply closet. Shelves were stacked with copy paper and lined filler papers – coveted items among teachers. Barrels of pens. Notebooks. Rubber bands. Glue sticks. Bins full of small decorative letters. CD cases.

In the end, most hauled away nearly $800 each in free school supplies from the food bank's Kids in Need program.

"Anything for my babies," said Griffin, a kindergarten teacher at Lithonia's Fairington Elementary School. "What they don't have, I get for them."

Many teachers spend time and money beyond the classroom.

"Teaching is not a 7-to-3 job, if you do it correctly," said Ross, who once paid for a student and her family to stay in a hotel after they lost their home in a fire.

Amanda Madsen, a fourth-grade teacher at Powers Ferry Elementary in Marietta, spent hundreds of dollars of her $39,000 salary on her students last year, her first in teaching. So she said her haul at the food bank was "like winning the lottery."

The piled-high shopping carts represented a lifeline for many students in the coming school year. Teachers not only took home crayons, scissors and workbooks, but deodorant, tissues and toothpaste.

"I haven't seen other programs like this," said Ross, a first-grade teacher at McLendon Elementary in Decatur, where she works with a lot of refugee and inner-city children. It was her third year participating.

Teachers will get a little help during the upcoming tax-free holiday when retailers generally offer back-to-school discounts to teachers. The state also chips in each year by giving teachers a $100 gift card. Teachers get some additional money from their schools for various items, and they can write off about $250 on their taxes.

Other than that, there's not many year-round programs to help teachers defray the cost of much-needed schools supplies in poor school districts. They're essentially on their own.

The Kids in Need program is likely to be in greater demand this coming school year as more families — including teachers — struggle with rising food and fuel prices and are forced to make tough choices.

"If there's no money in a family for food, certainly there's no money for new school supplies," said Judy Stamps, director of Kids in Need. "There's going to be a tremendous [economic] impact. As people have less disposable income, they're not going to be able to go out and purchase."

That won't bode well for many schoolchildren dependent on the generosity of their teachers to help with supplies and basic needs.

"Teachers are already on the low-end [of the payscale] and spend about $250 to $500 a year [out of their pockets]. Some spend upwards of $1,000," said George Jackson, a spokesman for the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.4 million teachers and other professionals. "Obviously as things become more expensive and fuel costs continue to rise, teachers are going to feel that in the wallets, just like other working Americans."

The added pressures on teachers is another example of how the economic downturn "is negatively impacting the quality of life, both directly and indirectly, for tens of thousands of Georgia families," Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said.

The longer the downturn lasts, the greater number of people it will impact, Thurmond added.

The Kids in Need program was started 10 years ago when a home and office supply trade show was looking to get rid of the items on display after its trade show ended in Atlanta.

"Rather than send all the products back or dump it, they chose to donate to a nonprofit so it could get into the schools," Stamps said. The program is believed to be one of 23 in the nation, officials said. Kids in Need's first year saw leery schools.

"It was like pulling teeth to get them in here," Stamps recalled. "They don't trust it. They think it's red tape. [They believe] nobody gives you something for nothing."

But once word got around, the program took off. More than 451,000 pounds of school supplies were given away during the last school year, Stamps said. In addition to providing teachers with backpacks, arts-and-crafts supplies and other items, there's another big take-away.

"A child who has new supplies ... is proud of them," said Stamps. "It builds their confidence and makes them want to go to school."

KIDS IN NEED PROGRAM

History: Started 10 years ago as a project of Atlanta Community Food Bank

Teachers served last school year: 3,734

Kids served: Estimated 232,000

Amount of school supplies given away last year: 451,000 pounds

School systems served: Atlanta, Decatur, Clayton County, Cobb County, Dekalb County, Fulton County, Gwinnett County, Spalding County

How it works: To qualify, you must teach in a school where at least 80 percent of the children receive free or reduced-price lunch. You can shop once a semester at the food bank distribution center. You are limited to one shopping cart of items per visit.

STATE'S CLASSROOM CARDS PROGRAM

Started: 2006

Amount dispensed: $100 card per teacher

Number of gift cards distributed: About 123,000

Amount paid: $12 million to $14 million a year

Sources: Atlanta Community Food Bank; State of Georgia

SCHOOL START

Aug. 1

Newton

Aug. 4

Cherokee

Douglas

Henry

Rockdale

Aug. 7

Clayton

City of Marietta

Aug. 11

Cobb

DeKalb

Fayette

Fulton

Gwinnett

City of Atlanta

City of Decatur

— Compiled by staff researcher Sharon Gaus