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Salvation Army collecting school supplies to help families during shortage

If you're looking for school supplies, they could be more expensive and harder to find this year.

Posted Updated

By
Kasey Cunningham
, WRAL reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — If you’re looking for school supplies, they could be more expensive and harder to find this year.

Fortunately, school supply giveaways are kicking off at the Salvation Army. Sign ups are already full, as demand has risen.

Salvation Army is collecting school supplies with more students going back in-person this year, as the need is greater. In addition to that, concern about a supply shortage could impact school supply availability.

Supply chain experts are calling this the perfect storm, a labor shortage, the Texas freeze and the pandemic are all contributing to the production issues.

“During COVID, so many people were not working, factories shut down," said Dr. Robert Handfield, distinguished professor of supply chain management at NC State. "It just takes some time for them to get back up and running again and keep up with the sudden surge in a demand. Everyone is spending right now in appliances and everything else and they’re all in short supply, unfortunately.”

The sign ups are already full for today’s giveaway. There’s a big need this year and the Salvation Army is still collecting supplies like backpacks, pencils, pens and flash drives. All are items that could be a little more expensive this year.

"Supply shortages are not going to disappear overnight — on the contrary, they are likely to persist in some form until well into 2022," said Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics.

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