COLUMBUS, Ind. — Families in need of school supplies lined up in their vehicles in a cone maze around the FairOaks Mall parking lot to pick up backpacks from the Bartholomew County School Supply Assistance Program.
The program provides a free backpack and school supplies to registered families, a distribution which normally happens inside the mall in a vacant storefront.
But on Tuesday and Wednesday, with precautions for the COVID-19 pandemic, the event looked a little different.
The distribution became a drive-thu event, with mask-wearing volunteers directing families to various stations to sign in from their vehicles.
To help streamline the process, volunteers wrote down the number of kids in each family, along with their grades and genders, and attached a sticky note with that information to the back of the family’s car. Then the volunteers loading the cars would know which backpacks to grab based on grade level.
One of the many community organizations involved with the school supply assistance program is the Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center. Diane Doup, the center’s community outreach coordinator and a program committee member, said the drive-thru setup was inspired by similar events held Love Chapel and the Cheer Fund.
The supply assistance program prepared about 2,500 supply-filled backpacks for students this year. Not all of these backpacks were given out on the two days, as there will likely be more requests for supply assistance in the near future, organizers said.
Editor’s note: The backpack distribution continues today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at FairOaks Mall.
For more on this story, see Thursday’s Republic.
