United Way fills stuffs 2,000 backpacks in school supply drive

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POTTSVILLE – Nearly two times as many backpacks as there are students in Shenandoah schools were stuffed throughout July as part of the Schuylkill United Way’s Stuff The Bus campaign.

The campaign has been done annually since 2002.

“Our goal is to meet the need,” SUW Executive Director Kelly K. Malone said in a media release. “It’s great to see new faces and the veterans who have been helping with this program for many years.”

Over 70 locations either had internal school supply drives or had public drop-off boxes. Local participants included the Ashland Public Library, Boyer’s Food Market in Frackville, M&T Bank, and the Primary Health Network.

Ateeco, Inc. of Shenandoah and Jeld Wen also held internal supply drives.

In total, over 35 businesses and organizations participated in the collection and provided volunteers to help sort and organize donations and fill the 2,000 bookbags.

Each bag will contain crayons, pencils, erasers, folders, notebooks, colored pencils, glue sticks, pencil pouches, scissors, highlighters, hand sanitizer, tissues, dry erase markers, and a miscellaneous item.

Nineteen schools and organizations will be served, as well as a variety of United Way Partner Agencies.

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