Church collects supplies for schools
First Church: United Methodist Community, 215 N. McKean St., will join in the back-to-school shopping season with its upcoming “Stuff the Bus” effort running Aug. 14 to 16.
The church is asking the community to help fill a school bus, parked at its Crossfire campus at the corner of Mercer Road and Route 8, with school supplies needed by elementary teachers in the Butler School District.
Many times teachers buy these items with their own funds instead of being supplied by the school district, said Josh Taylor, a third-grade teacher at Emily Brittain School, 338 N Washington St., who is a church member and an organizer of the school supply effort.
“This meets a need to help the teachers,” Taylor said. “We used to get $150 from the district to use on school classroom supplies. We aren't able to get that anymore.”
Jayme Steighner, the church's children's director and another Stuff the Bus organizer, said, “We used to do a program where we stuffed backpacks (with supplies.) But the principals and teachers that we talked to said it wasn't meeting the need. We needed a better way to get supplies into the teachers' hands.”
Steighner said while she was in North Carolina she learned of a church organizing a stuff-the-bus campaign and brought the idea back home. “This is a great way to get the community involved, not just First Church,” said Steighner
Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Aug. 14 to 16, two church members will be at the bus to accept donated school supplies and stow them on the bus, said Cindy Ford, the church's director of communications.
And it will take a lot of supplies to fill the bus chosen for the effort.
Bill Wehr, safety coordinator for Valley Lines on Oneida Valley Road, said Valley Lines will supply the largest school bus it uses on its routes.“It's 8 feet wide, 40 feet long and 12 feet high,” said Wehr. “It has 28 seats and the seat capacity is 84 at three kids per seat.”Each seat on the bus will then be labeled with a specific supply.Ford said the plan is for the donated supplies to stay on the bus when it is driven back to the garage each day and locked up “unless we get lucky enough that it is overflowing.”Steighner said, “At the end of the collection, we will unload at the Crossfire campus and sort the supplies. We'll go to the schools and distribute them to the teachers.”Ford said the church plans to donate supplies first to the elementary schools in the city: Emily Brittain, Broad Street and Center Avenue and then divide the remainder up among the other elementary schools in the Butler School District.She added the church has a partnership with several schools already, providing classroom aides at the Broad Street and Emily Brittain schools.Steighner said, “Volunteers will take it and distribute it to the schools. We hope to have enough supplies to supply everybody with something.”Taylor said the first day of school in the Butler district is Aug. 27, with teachers beginning the first of three in-service days Aug. 22, so the school supply collection will be a timely one.Steighner said the church hopes to make this inaugural effort an annual event.
Each bus seat will be labeled with a supply that teachers need. Donors may drop off any supplies they wish.Supplies being collected for the classrooms include:✓ Dry-erase markers✓ Plain yellow pencils✓ Pencil top erasers✓ Blue pens✓ Red pens✓ Crayons✓ Markers✓ Colored pencils✓ Pencil cases✓ Elmer's glue✓ Elmer's glue sticks✓ Children's scissors✓ Rulers✓ 3-ring binders✓ 1-subject spiral bound notebooks✓ 2-pocket folders✓ Kleenex✓ Clorox wipes✓ Various child-sized new socks, shoes, underwear and belts
