By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
School is just around the corner and students are in need of new school supplies for the school year.
The United Way of Greater St. Joseph is prepared to help.
Director of Community Investment Jodi Flurry says the United Way along with the salvation Army will work to 'Stuff the Bus' with school supplies to distribute to students.
"We work to get those school supplies to kids, to teachers, and to schools so they have the supplies they need to start the school year off right," Flurry tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "This weekend we will be at both north and south Belt Walmart's with hundreds of volunteers to help encourage shoppers to buy some new school supplies that they'll then donate, and we'll be out there with a big yellow school bus thanks to Apple Bus."
Flurry says for Stuff the Bus all different kinds of school supplies can be donated.
"So, if it's a kindergartner it's going to look like a very different backpack, so a backpack full with crayons, and colored pencils, and construction paper, scissors, and glue sticks, that's what your kindergartner is going to get," Flurry explains. "But if you're a high school student you need composition notebooks, you need blue, black, and red pens, #2 pencils, maybe a calculator."
Flurry says United Way volunteers will have lists to distribute at the doors of Walmart of items that can be donated.
Stuff the Bus will take place Friday and Saturday during Tax Free Weekend. Volunteers will be out from 8am to 7pm on Friday and 8am to 5:30pm on Saturday.
Flurry says once the busses are stuffed, it will then be given to the Salvation Army of St. Joseph to distribute to kids in need.
"And they're going to serve several hundred kids using the supplies collected through United Way Stuff the Bus," Flurry says. "Usually there's some supplies left over that we're able to help support kids that maybe couldn't make it or might live outside the Salvation Army service area, and then we also with leftover supplies if there's any remaining offer it up to schools."
Flurry says leftover supplies could be given to new teachers that could use new supplies as well as older teachers that could also use them.
