The 2014 Cram the Van campaign impacted the Santa Rosa community in a big way – $40,000 big. Over 3,500 children that attend school from Head start to high school were supplied with backpacks that contained many of the items needed for the coming school year, such as calculators, protractors, compasses, pens, pencils, flash drives, paper and notebooks, construction paper, and crayons. The school supply lists varied by school and grade and United Way of SRC and its volunteers accommodated each need as much as possible.
Applications for school supplies were accepted throughout the summer until August 8th. The amount of applications rose 314 percent from last year. “This large increase in applications throughout Santa Rosa County confirms the need for this program” states Anja Machado, director of marketing and communications, “United Way of SRC and many, many volunteers stepped up to the high demand and made certain that every child that applied with United Way received a crammed backpack with school supplies.”
The Cram the Van campaign could not be made possible without United Way SRC’s partners WEAR TV, Sandy Sansing, Papa Johns, Pace and Gulf Breeze Wal-Mart Locations, United Way Escambia, Gulf Breeze Sertoma Club, CatCountry, SoftRock, and Pace and Gulf Breeze SweetFrog locations.
The annual campaign raises money and donations to supply children in need with school supplies for the coming year. The Santa Rosa community was very giving and filled 3 Vans with over 12,500 lbs of school supplies. It took close to 700 volunteer hours and 500 United Way SRC staff hours to collect, sort, and distribute this year’s school supplies. “Every single dollar raised was spent on backpacks and extra school supplies for our local children, and we at United Way of SRC are very proud of that” explains Machado.
For more information, call (850) 623-4507 or visit www.unitedwaysrc.org.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Cram the Van impact astonishing in Santa Rosa County