Stuff the Bus!

I am up to my eyeballs in an extremely rewarding volunteer project. My Junior League placement this year is "Stuff the Bus", a project in which we (JL) pay for and distribute school supplies for more than 10,000 children in Bryan ISD & College Station ISD. The JL also receives many school supplies donated by our generous community, which we organize, inventory and distribute to students. In my previous years' placements I've been on the fundraising side, securing corporate sponsorships which fund projects such as Stuff the Bus. I decided that this was the year I wanted to be involved in a JL project that directly touches the lives of children.

I've spent the last week taking inventory of tens of thousands of school supplies, lifting many boxes, stuffing bags full of school supplies, organizing school supplies by school and labeling & sealing boxes of supplies. On Thursday our committee will be meeting the delivery drivers from BISD & CSISD when they pick up their school supplies.

It's been one of the most fun projects I've worked on. Dozens of women putting in sweat equity so that children don't have to come to their first day of school without much needed school supplies.

The first day of school is difficult enough, but if a child enters his/her classroom and is already behind because they don't have pencils, paper, markers, etc....it just makes me cry thinking about it!

I was able to complete the donated supplies for AB's school (which our chairperson allowed me to do since she knows how much I love Johnson). It made me so happy that I had a small part in helping some of AB's classmates/schoolmates and so many others in our area schools. I hope that the school supplies we've provided to students will assist them as they begin a new year of learning!

To learn more about Stuff the Bus, click here...http://www.jlbcs.org/Community+Impact/Stuff+The+Bus+-+Signature+Project