As kids head back to the classroom for the 2024-2025 school year, many families face the challenge of buying and affording the required school supplies needed to embark on a successful academic experience. Recently, in Hernando County, some major charitable and community service organizations stepped up to collect and distribute massive quantities of school supplies—ensuring that every child goes to school prepared and empowered to learn.
How massive? Through its 18th annual Stuff the Bus effort, the United Way of Hernando County amassed 2,210 pounds of school supplies distributed to classrooms in Hernando and $6,285 in monetary donations to support additional classroom needs.
That’s 1,072 boxes of crayons—928 three-prong folders. One thousand five hundred nine glue sticks and 546 composition notebooks were distributed.
This year’s Stuff the Bus took place on Saturday, July 13th, and Sunday, July 14th, at all eight (8) Hernando Publix Stores.
United Way of Hernando County, Inc. (UWHC) was established as a 501c3 organization in 1987. Since then, it has continuously focused on creating partnerships and mobilizing our community to seek sustainable solutions to some of the most pressing local needs.
The Annual United Way Stuff the Bus education initiative supplies local classrooms with the tools needed for the new school year. School bus locations are operated by a dedicated team of teachers and volunteers collecting donated school supplies for Hernando County classrooms. Donated supplies include pencils, pens, colored pencils, crayons, copy paper, markers, index cards, highlighters, calculators, erasers, rulers, scissors, pencil sharpeners, tape, tissue, dictionaries, folders, papers, notebooks, etc.
Teachers spend an average of $750 or more of their own funds annually on classroom supplies and needs.
“We have close to 1,500 teachers in our Hernando School system, and this is exactly why this event remains a priority for our team,” said United Way of Hernando County’s Executive Director Angie B. Walasek. “If we can alleviate even the slightest cost burden for a teacher by providing folders, a backpack, or composition notebooks so they can, in return, provide them to a student who needs the basics, then that is exactly what we’ll continue to do.”
According to Walasek, this need grows every year. “As the teachers file their wish lists this year, and we speak to them in passing,” said Walasek, ” we’re hearing the same message: The need is greater than ever.”
More and more schools, teachers, and families are struggling to provide kids with the basic tools to succeed. “People don’t realize how much a pack of markers or pencils can cost or how valuable it is to these kids,” said Walasek. Many teachers keep ‘just in case’ bins in their classrooms, and they need help filling them.
To participate in Stuff the Bus, teachers signed up to volunteer at a site and submitted their Wish List by visiting UnitedWayHernando.org/Volunteer. Community members purchased school supply items on July 13th and 14th, also giving cash donations and gift cards, and donated to a “Stuff the Bus” effort at a local participating site—repeatedly filling nine school buses with purchased school supplies. In addition, school supplies were dropped off at the United Way Office—4028 Commercial Way, Spring Hill, FL, 34606.
