It is hard to know what to put in a box for an eighth grader if you haven’t had to deal with that age group recently.  So, to help you out with that we are including a list of recommended items for Hope Boxes broken down by gender and grade.  The lists can be daunting, so we would ask that you first focus on hygiene and school supplies before moving on to the fun stuff.  Now, by no means do we ask that you ignore the fun stuff because these children need things to brighten their day as much as anyone.  We simply want to insure that we get the necessities in each box.  You may not think a tooth brush would be a necessity, but we have continually discovered that when decisions need to be made between dental hygiene and putting food on the table—food wins.