The annual Stuff-A-Bus campaign benefited hundreds of students in every district around the county.
Initiated by the United Way’s Success By 6 program, the goal of the annual Stuff-A-Bus campaign is to collect school supplies for children in need throughout Oswego County.
School supplies are donated over the course of the program, and on the final day loaded onto buses.
This year, the program stuffed 11 buses with school supplies.
Over all, the program was a big success, Jennifer Cahill, one of the Oswego district’s coordinators for the Stuff-A-Bus effort, told the school board this week.
They had their distribution on Tuesday, she noted.
“Over 190 students, Oswego students, were serviced today by supplies that came from throughout the entire county; individual people along with many community businesses and organizations,” she told the board. “Not only did they have generous donations, but they also had collection sites right there at their businesses.”
On Friday afternoon, the buses rolled up to the Leighton Elementary School in Oswego to be unloaded.
No matter where they came from, they all looked the same.
The seats were jam-packed with large cardboard boxes instead of school children. The boxes, many of the overflowing with supplies, contained everything from pencils and notebooks to globes and calculators.
“I also wanted you to know we should be very proud of the district. We had representation from throughout the entire district, there was a lot of grunt work,” she continued. “There was a lot of work that needed to be done in unstuffing the buses at Leighton School on Friday.”
Oswego was the one district that stuck out with all the volunteers, she added, noting that Dave White (board president) and Dan Hoefer (board member) were among the volunteers.
In 2003, the program started with one bus at the Midway Drive-in, since it was located between the cities of Fulton and Oswego. In 2004, there were three buses. It was up to nine buses by 2006, and 11 last year.
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