With just a week until public schools open for the fall semester, families are on the hunt for pencils, paper and perseverance to make it through another year.
Earlier this week, some area families received a little extra help. The Bartholomew County School Supply Assistance Program’s annual distribution is underway, concluding today.
As with last year, families picked up their supplies via drive-thru. However, while 2020’s distribution used the FairOaks Mall parking lot, this year’s pick-up took place at the Cheer Fund building.
Diane Doup, community outreach coordinator for the Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center, said that distribution went very well. Volunteers handed out around 950 supply-filled backpacks on Tuesday.
“We had a lot of kids riding with their families in their vehicles, which was wonderful, to get see the kids and hear their excitement about school starting,” Doup said. “We also had some of the school resource officers there who were able to visit with the children as well. So it was definitely an added bonus to see their smiles this year.”
The School Supply Assistance Program provides free, basic school supplies for families in financial need with children in grades K-12 at any school in the county. This includes the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., the Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp., private schools and the Virtual Learning Pathway. Supplies are provided thanks to contributions from the community.
During 2020, about 2,000 students in the county received school supplies through the program.
United Way’s Volunteer Action Center reported that registration was close to 1,600 as of Friday morning, and calls were still coming in.
“We are still seeing folks who are still recovering from financial situations that they were in due to the pandemic, but also just those in general that have needed assistance,” Doup said. “Last year, we also knew that there were families that were going to be doing virtual options for school and didn’t realize that they were going to need supplies as well. So we’ve seen an uptick from folks now that so many of those children will now be in-person full-time.”
She added that several people visited distribution asking about how they could get signed up. She expects more registrations to come in and more backpacks to be given out.
In addition to the drive-thru format, other COVID-19 protocols were still in place for the program, including masks and health and safety measures implemented during packaging. Doup said that the health and safety of students, families and volunteers is “of the utmost importance.”
She also expressed gratitude to the Cheer Fund for use of their facility and advice on drive-thru efficiency, volunteers for their hard work, nearby businesses and organizations for their understanding, and the city for helping with traffic flow and signage.
Doup said that the program will continue providing assistance to those in need as they are able.
“We know that there are going to be families that move into the community later or that find themselves in a last-minute crisis situation,” she said. “… So donations are still welcome to the program. And then we also try to take advantage of clearance sales at the end of the season, so we’ll be making more purchases this fall as long as monies allow for that.”
