Operation Backpack Team And Oskaloosa Schools Introduce “Stuff The Bus” Event
United Way
Oskaloosa, Iowa – United Way of Mahaska County, Salvation Army, SIEDA, and Love Inc are hard at work on this season’s Operation Backpack, the county program providing backpacks and supplies to school children in need. With two weeks until the July 13th application deadline, the Operation Backpack Team is announcing its partnership with the Oskaloosa School District to bring the community a new event called Stuff the Bus. “The purpose of the event is to raise awareness of this need in our community and to keep pace with the program’s growth,” stated United Way Program Coordinator, Katie Schippers. “Since 2009, we’ve managed a 230% increase in the number of stuffed backpacks provided by the program, which functions solely on donations of funds and supplies from the community, yet few community members know it exists.”
The event takes place on Thursday, July 19th from 11AM to 1PM in the Oskaloosa Hy-Vee’s north parking lot and will be the culmination of many community supply drives happening simultaneously. All donations will be gathered together and literally packed into an Oskaloosa School District bus, the goal being to fill the bus to capacity. Public collection boxes, found at Bank Iowa, Curves, Dollar General, Fareway, Hy-Vee, Mahaska Drug, MidWestOne Bank, Oskaloosa Vision Center, Smokey Row, United Way, and Walmart, are available to accept donations of supplies from the community until the evening of July 18. Workplace supply drives will be taking place at the Agency on Aging, Cablevey Conveyors, Cargill, Central United Methodist Church, Clow Valve, First Christian Church, First Presbyterian Church, Hawkeye Real Estate/Mahaska Title, Imagine the Possibilities, ITW Paslode, Mahaska Health Partnership, Maple Ridge Assisted Living, MidWestOne Bank, Musco, South Central Iowa Center for Independent Living, TD&T, UPS, and William Penn University. Special thanks to Cablevey Conveyors for their donation of boxes for the internal supply drives.
“Operation Backpack’s level of success is a direct result of the level of the community’s support,” added Schippers. To get involved, make a donation of some of the following items in a public collection box or at the Stuff the Bus event: glue sticks, wide-ruled spiral notebooks, wide-ruled loose-leaf paper, scissors, highlighters, pick erasers, 3-ring binders, red/blue/black pens, yellow #2 pencils, 24-pack Crayola crayons, 2-pocket folders, TI-30 scientific calculators, Kleenex tissues, and Clorox wipes. Literally all supplies donated will be used by area school children during the 2012-2013 school year. Volunteers will also be needed during the event from 11AM-1PM to help load supplies on the bus, and from 1PM-2PM to help unload them at the Central United Methodist Church. Call United Way at 673-6043 to reserve your volunteer opportunity or for more information regarding Stuff the Bus or Operation Backpack.
