Grand Lake Rotary Club brings back Stuff the Bus program

CELINA - Grand Lake Rotarians are jumping back on the Stuff the Bus program to garner school supplies for children in need.

The organization, in a partnership with the Celina Walmart store and Celina City Schools, is leading the charge to procure items that will be supplied to students.

Celina Lake Rotarians and likely Celina teachers will return to both entrances of Walmart from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 14, a Saturday. They'll hand out to customers entering the store a flier containing a list of core items most in demand at the school. People will then purchase some of the supplies inside the store and give them to Rotarians and teachers waiting outside. Volunteers also will accept cash donations to buy additional items.

Rotarians will drop off the supplies at the school. They will be allocated to students in need during the school year.

"We have had great success," Celina City Schools Superintendent Ken Schmiesing said about the campaign. "We do have a number of needy students. Close to 45% would qualify for the free and reduced program, so that tells you here in Celina, having the highest rates of poverty students, there is a great need."

It's also nice to take the pressure off the back of a student who may not have the supplies necessary to complete their work and focus on learning, Schmiesing said.

"We do appreciate the Grand Lake Rotarians for those efforts," he said.

Once the items are delivered to the school, teachers periodically make requests for certain supplies some students don't have in class.

"We do get requests from every one of our buildings for school supplies for students," Schmiesing said.

Those interested in donating items or money at anytime of the year can send them to Stuff the Bus, P.O. Box 403, Celina, Ohio, 45822-0403.

Rotarians seek the following items: two-pocket folders, large pink erasers, pointed Fiskars scissors, box of No. 2 pencils, box of 24 crayons, small bottle of glue, box of facial tissues, box of Crayola broad tip markers, backpacks, dry erase markers, glue sticks, black or blue ballpoint pens and zippered pencil pouches.

"The pocket folders are really popular items that many of the students find need of," Schmiesing noted, saying the folders are hard to come by in stores as it gets closer to the the start of school.

"All of (the teachers) say they need Kleenexes," Rotarian Joe Schlueter said at the group's meeting this week when asked what items are in highest demand.

Grand Lake Rotarians have held the event a few times in the past but didn't host a day at Walmart last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They estimate they've raised roughly $30,000 worth of supplies and cash for Stuff the Bus.

However, all of the money and supplies donated in the past are now completely exhausted, Schlueter said, stressing the importance of the upcoming school supply drive at Walmart.

Many generous individuals have come through big during previous Stuff the Bus days, Schlueter said.

"We had people that walked in and bought backpacks and then walked back in and bought the rest of them," added fellow Rotarian Jeff Nelson.

One year, a representative of a local organization bought a shopping-cart worth of items that he donated to the initiative, Schlueter recalled.

"It's really crazy how people will donate this stuff. It's just amazing. I never thought the first year we did it that it would be such a good thing," he said.

He also heaped praise on the Celina teachers whom he has coordinated with to pull off the school supply drive, pointing to one teacher who went out and bought a pair of new shoes for a student whose parents couldn't afford to buy them.

"We have a good bunch of teachers, I would say that," he said.