School Supply Drive Underway

Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – August 3, 2024 – Imagine being an elementary school student for a moment. Things are tough at home. Money is tight. You are required to have a certain kind of paper for a class lesson today. You don’t have what you need because your family couldn’t afford to buy it. It’s time for the lesson. Your teacher asks the class to get out their paper for the lesson. You don’t have what you need but you don’t want to tell the teacher. The other kids might say something mean. So, you keep quiet. Your teacher scans the room with her eyes. She notices your empty desktop. Without saying a word, she steps out of the classroom. She walks down to a supply closet which contains school supplies provided by donations during the Stuff the Bus school supplies collection effort. Your teacher comes back and without saying a word puts the paper you need on your desk. You look at her. She smiles and walks away. No one else even notices what happened. You have what you need because someone cared enough to donate it to Stuff the Bus.

For 19 years the United Way of Northeast Arkansas has partnered with KAIT and the Jonesboro Radio Group to organize and present Stuff the Bus. Today at Wal-Mart locations across Northeast Arkansas yellow school buses representing 21 school districts are parked in front. Pop-up tents are set-up. Volunteers representing each school district are present. Customers coming to Wal-Mart buy school supplies inside then bring the supplies outside and donate them to the volunteers. Some customers who don’t know what school supplies to buy drop money in a bucket and tell the volunteers to buy what they need.

The volunteers are hot. Sweaty. It’s 90+ degrees and humid. But they do it. For the kids.

KAIT news anchor Diana Davis was part of the first school supply collection effort. “It started as a car wash many years ago,” Davis said. “KAIT employees washed cars to collect money to buy school supplies. We did it for a couple of years, and then I missed a year because I was having a baby. It was during that year that the United Way, the Jonesboro Sun and the Jonesboro Radio Group organized the first Stuff the Bus event. By the following year I was back, KAIT joined in, and the rest is history. This is our 19th year.”

Just like everything she does, Davis is “all-in” when she starts the day with Stuff the Bus. She’s front-and-center at the Highland Drive Wal-Mart location. KAIT pullover shirt. Hair perfect. Make-up perfect but the sweat pouring down her face from the heat as she greets every person that walks up and thanks them for their donation. “Supplying school supplies for your children has gotten more expensive over the years,” Davis said. “It costs well over a hundred dollars to buy all of the supplies on the kids’ school supply lists. Stuff the Bus is important.”