It is the hope of all children to begin a new school year with nice, new school supplies, but many families cannot afford to purchase all of the supplies that are required, especially if there are multiple children within a family. To help meet this need, Bainbridge Public Safety came up with the idea to hold a “Fill the Bus” school supply drive. During the months of June and July, citizens of Bainbridge were asked to donate school supplies for area elementary schools, and place them inside of our big, purple “Kids ‘n Kops” bus.
The Bainbridge community embraced this challenge. Almost every day, people stopped by Public Safety…their arms loaded down with supplies. The seats on the bus started filling up! As the first day of school approached, the school supply drive came to an end. On Wednesday, August 7th, Sergeant David Cutchin and Public Information Officer Julia Harris unloaded the bags and boxes of supplies from the “Kids ‘n Kops” bus. Salvation Army of Bainbridge joined the effort and brought by two large boxes of new supplies and about 50 bookbags which had been donated by community members. Cutchin and Harris sorted all of the supplies which included 176 composition spiral notebooks, 120 boxes of markers, 200 boxes of crayons, 155 pocket folders, 184 packages of notebook paper, 64 pairs of scissors, 90 packs of colored pencils, 83 bottles of glue, approximately 500 glue sticks, and too many pencils to count. They worked to divide up the supplies for each elementary school, and then pack them into boxes.
On the morning of Thursday, August 8th, Assistant Fire Chief Ryan Deen, Firefighter Tyler Dalton, Engineer Michael Jenkins, and Harris used firetrucks to deliver the boxes of supplies to Potter Street, West Bainbridge, John Johnson, Jones-Wheat, and Spring Creek Charter. Harris stated, “We recognized a need within our community and came up with a fun and easy way to meet that need. We want to express our sincere thanks to the community for partnering with us to help so many students.”
John Johnson Elementary
Jones Wheat Elementary
Potter Street Elementary
Spring Creek Charter Academy
