Volunteers ‘Stuff the Bus’ for local students

WASILLA — Students from every corner of the Mat-Su Borough School District flocked to the Menard Sports Center on Wednesday to collect free school supplies prior to the start of grades first through 12th on Thursday. About 1,200 students were handed backpacks and got to walk around to fill them with school supplies. This is the fifth year of the event, organized by the United Way of Mat-Su.

“We’ve impacted a lot of families,” Director of Development for the United Way, Nick Jenkins, said. “We’re stoked, we’re here to give it away so we don’t want to put it back into storage, we want it to be out there in the world,”

A line formed from the turf, up the stairs and around the platform at the Menard Center. According to volunteers, a steady line of students was moving for an hour-and-a-half. The event began at 10:00 a.m. and ran until 3:00 p.m., but the volunteer work began much before that.

Boxes of school supplies stacked three or four high in the United Way office had to be loaded into a truck Wednesday night, and volunteers began unstacking and unpacking before 8:00 a.m.. Many of the students who came to pick up free school supplies come from single parent families, and were relieved to have some of the financial burden of being prepared for school taken off of the shoulders of single parents.

“It’s nice. Instead of having to go last second and get what’s left, not what you need. I think it’s awesome that we have people that put their time aside to do something like this,” said Kiersta, an incoming freshman at Wasilla High School.

Frontline Mission donated gently used clothing. Vaccines were available for those who needed them. Stylists donated time to give kids free haircuts so they could be looking sharp on the first day of school. Members of the Civil Air Patrol were there to take down tables at the end of the event.

“Think about the pride that comes from that, just enabling how that sets them up to want to be successful and connected to school, so really that’s what it’s about for us,” said Director of Development for the United Way Chelsea Fields.

Registered students were able to walk through either the elementary school supply line or the middle/high school line and pick up items like binders, binder dividers, paper, glue, folders, rulers, protractors, permanent markers, scissors, highlighters pens of black, blue, and red, pencil pouches, pencils, colored and black, pencil sharpeners, and erasers.

“We talk a lot about those protective factors that keep kids engaged in healthy things. Well school is a really important healthy thing. We can do something like this that helps kids start the year off on the right foot like that’s what we’re all about,” Fields said.

Leftover supplies will be given to some local schools like Valley Pathways and Burchell High School. Some leftover supplies will be stored to be handed out at next year’s stuff the bus, and some will be left in the United Way office for those who call looking for school supplies because they missed this year’s event. Fields does not have a MSBSD student of her own, but plans to leave her job to become a stay at home mother in the next few weeks and let Jenkins take over. Fields has been instrumental in organizing the event over her last three years at the United Way, but the spirit of the community will continue to push the event to gear up students for the upcoming year. Fields said that aside from the 85 volunteers, United Way’s role is just to organize everyone who wants to help. Fields fields calls from volunteers who want to donate time or money for weeks prior to the event, and volunteers swarm the Menard Center to work in shifts helping to supply the students.