United Way’s annual Stuff The Bus event is back

AUGUSTA, G.A. (WJBF)- NewsChannel 6 and The United Way are partnering to help students and teachers gear up for the upcoming school year.

“Stuff The Bus” is an event held by the WJBF and The United Way annually. It helps students and teachers with school supplies for the upcoming year.

“Well, being a grandmother, I buy my grandchildren school supplies, and I have seen how expensive it gets every year. And it seems that as they age up, so does the price in their supplies,” SRP Federal Credit Union and event volunteer Yvonne Meeks said.

But Yvonne Meeks isn’t the only volunteer feeling the costs of school supplies and helping to lessen that load.

“I am here, not only as a United Way board member, but I am also here as a mother with a son in middle school, so I know first-hand, one, how many supplies they need to start off the school year, but then also how expensive those school supplies are,” United Way board Member Briana Williams said.

That’s the reason, volunteers say, they showed up to help.

“You’re looking at 800, 900 dollars for clothing and back-to-school supplies– a lot of families can’t do that. So, with “Stuff The Bus” – with the donations that we get– we’re able to help those students and the classrooms. So, these go to the school, the teachers then disperse to the students that need them…,” South State Bank and event volunteer Wendy Bradley said.

During Friday’s drop off event at the Kroc Center, all kinds of school supply donations were delivered and packed onto buses.

“Everything from colored pencils, to protractors, to graph paper, regular composition notebooks, glue, hand sanitizer… Lysol wipes. There’s so many tools and supplies the teachers need to help their classroom run efficiently, run safely, and to run healthy as well,” Williams said.

From the drop off location, all supplies are distributed throughout parts of the CSRA.

“Richmond County will disperse to their schools, and then Columbia County will disperse them to their schools… and then we have a separate one for Burke County…,” Bradley said.

While the Augusta drop off event is over with, another drop-off event will take place Saturday July 20 in Waynesboro at the Walmart located at 1500 N. Liberty Street. That will take place from 9 am to 1pm.

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