Back to School Fair provides needed supplies to 500 Le Sueur County families

Backpacks, notebooks and clothes for the fall season were flying out the doors of Tri-City United Le Center on Thursday as hundreds of Le Sueur County families stocked up on supplies for the upcoming school year.

For parents feeling their pockets pinched by rising retail costs, the Back to School Community Fair’s distribution of free school supplies and other essential items was a valuable opportunity to finish out their shopping lists at a minimal cost.

In its third year, the community fair was serving more people than ever before with 560 families in attendance. Interest in the event had grown so large that organizers with the Minnesota Valley Action Council, Salvation Army and Le Sueur County Public Health moved the fair from its previous location at Le Center American Legion Post 108 to the more spacious TCU Le Center gymnasium.

”We outgrew the space and we needed a bigger area and built our team up a little bigger this year to include more Le Sueur County employees and school employees and just brought in a horizon of people on the team and got bigger and better than it’s ever been,” said event coordinator and MVAC Family Resource Specialist MacKenzie Schmitz.

With the new space, organizers set up welcoming rainbow balloon archways that led families into the gymnasium sprawling end to end with donated fall and winter clothes for kids and adults of all ages, and school supplies and hygiene products purchased by the Salvation Army. While Schmitz said they had more clothing than they knew what to do with, the available school supplies were gobbled up quick. All 250 backpacks were gone within the first hour.

“We’ve talked about upping the budget for next year’s program because we ran out so fast and we want to keep serving people,” said Schmitz.

There was more to Community Fair than just collecting school supplies though. Families could also get free back to school haircuts from Lonsdale’s Ivory and Onyx Salon on-site as well as connect with area school districts, mental health service providers, childcare and public health workers and non-profit social service organizations for people in need. Schmitz said connecting families with these resources was one of the community fair’s primary goals, so each family was directed to stop at five of the booths while picking up supplies.

“[We’re] helping them feel fully prepared for the back to school year because a lot of people think just a backpack and school supplies and you’re good to go, but we really wanted to it to be more of an all-encompassing event so the whole family feels prepared for the back to school year,” said Schmitz. “Feeling good, looking good and having what they need is our goal.”