ROCKINGHAM – August – the time of year when school supplies storm the shelves at rock bottom prices, providing consumers the annual opportunity to bulk up on things such as pencils, folders, and notebooks for just pennies a piece. It is a complete bargain, right?
Not quite. Even with prices so low, outfitting a child with all of their back to school necessities adds up to be a small fortune.
According to the 2018 Huntington Backpack Index, parents spend an average of $637 to $1,355, each year on school supplies and general fees, dependent upon the age of their child. The same study also shows that classroom teachers similarly spend an average of $479 to more than $1,000 each year on preparing their classroom and stocking it with the critical supplies that their incoming students will need that year.
While many families are financially capable of providing such necessities for their little learners, many families are not. Sadly, as is the case for many local families, the need to provide school supplies for their students places them in a financial crisis that forces them to choose between education and nutrition.
Fortunately though, a powerful local partnership has been formed between Richmond County Schools, the United Way of Richmond County, and Walmart of Rockingham, targeted at helping such families.
On Thursday, August 9th members from each of these organizations gathered together outside of Walmart in Rockingham to host their 10th annual Stuff the Bus event.
“The United Way of Richmond County works to make sure that every child has needed school supplies to start their school year off on the right foot,” explained Michelle Parrish, Executive Director of the organization. “So many children have different stories away from their school environment and this is a simple way to make sure they don’t have to worry about where their school supplies will come from.”
Although this longstanding, annual campaign has changed slightly throughout the years, it most certainly has not lost its steam or appeal as each year’s event is proving to be bigger and better than the one before and yielding even more buy in from local businesses and community members.
Within this year’s campaign, there were several sponsor levels ranging in value from $75 to $500. Aside from the satisfaction of giving back to the community’s youth, each sponsor received their business logo on a custom poster or banner displayed upon the bus at the event.
The year’s top sponsor, Richmond Young Professionals, received their name on a large partnership banner that spanned five windows of the bus’s exterior. Sponsors Therafirm, Enviva, Direct Pack, and FirstHealth of the Carolinas, who each pledged $350, were each recognized with their own banners draped across the front windshield or grill of one of the buses on scene.
The remaining 32 event sponsors had smaller posters displayed across the bus’s windows. However, with an impressive eleven business increase in sponsorships from last year, so came the need to bring in a second bus to stuff and provide the needed display room to rightfully recognize each sponsor.
While such sponsorships are crucial in providing the capital needed to purchase even more school supplies for our area’s children, the event itself would not be possible without a community of volunteers.
“We are very gracious to have all of these student volunteers here to help us,” shared Parrish. “Mrs. Hudson puts in a lot of work to organize these Beta Club students who are helping us out today.”
These student volunteers, led by Richmond Senior High School Social Studies teacher and Beta Club adviser, Suzanne Hudson, were stationed outside of every set of doors at the shopping center, kindly accepting donations from generous shoppers. Armed with a shopping cart for purchased items and a bucket for monetary donations, the service-oriented students worked in shifts of up to 5 hours at the event in exchange for credited hours of community service.
But for rising high school senior and long-time Beta Club member, Kylie McDonald, the reasons to get involved with this campaign far surpass the service hours she’d be awarded.
“At this point its not about the hours for me or the points, it’s about helping the community. I’m really involved in the foster care system and doing work to support them, and I know that some of this is going to go towards helping them as well as other children who have this need.”
Students like McDonald who were stationed outside of Wal-Mart during the event were only a part of the student workforce needed to make the campaign a success. Later in the day a new crop of Beta members arrived to the scene to collect final supplies and transport them over to the district’s Central Office where they diligently worked to sort and count the thousands of items that had been collected.
The main event of this year’s Stuff the Bus campaign may be over, but there is still time left to donate for anyone who is interested. Supplies will happily be accepted at the RCS Central Office, the United Way of Richmond County, or at the first home football game on August 17th where all sponsor banners will also be displayed once more.
To learn more about this campaign and to find a complete list of requested items, contact Michelle Parrish with United Way at (910) 997-2173 or RCS Public Information Officer, Briana Goins with Richmond County Schools (910) 582-5860.
