The dedication of Santa Rosa County residents and volunteers was evident, enduring the extreme heat this week to assist financially disadvantaged families in preparing their children for the next school year by donating school supplies in the annual ‘Cram the Van' campaign.
Located just outside the Wal-Mart in Pace on Thursday to encourage shoppers to purchase new school supplies for the event or collect the donations from giving customers leaving the store, volunteers were set up with ice chests of water and portable fans.
Kyle Holley, director of development for the United Way of SRC, said the event was started by Channel Three WEAR-TV with the longtime support of Sandy Sansing Nissan.
Holley said this annual fund raiser continues to make a substantial impact for Santa Rosa County.
“From year to year, it has between a $40 and $60,000 impact as far as school supplies that come in,” he said. “We should serve about 2,500 and 3,000 families with this stuff.”
While volunteers at the Wal-Mart in Pace assist in promoting the campaign, additional volunteers also worked on Thursday to fill another van at the Wal-Mart in Gulf Breeze.
The donations will be distributed to families in need prior to the beginning of this upcoming school year. Currently families can fill out applications at the United Way of SRC at the Milton office, located on Caroline Street. The deadline to apply is August 5.
The campaign provides donations to area schools which also provide the needed supplies to families in need.
Residents still have time to donate school supplies towards the campaign by dropping off supplies at multiple sponsor locations. One of the drop off locations is new sponsor CharterBank.
Lechia Froman, branch manager of the CharterBank location in Pace, said each CharterBank locations in Milton, Pace and Pensacola is currently serving as a drop off location in which the organization is also accepting monetary donations in which school supplies will be purchased.
Froman said several employees will also volunteer at the local United Way office to sort out the supplies as well as volunteer with distribution of the supplies.
“We want to see this all of the way through,” Froman said.
She said she's continually impressed from her first time volunteering with the campaign.
“I think it has been very awesome,” she said. “The kids have been out here from the NJROTC at Pace High School and they have been talking to people as they have been coming in and we have been trying to organizing the items as they are coming in. The Wal-Mart customers have done very well about giving…we have got tons of donations so far.”
WANT TO HELP?
The following is a list school supplies needed for this year's ‘Cram the Van' event…
Backpacks, calculators, headphones, flash drives, binders, pocket and prong folders, separators, scissors, pens (black, blue and red), pencils, colored pencils, highlighters and markers, composition notebooks, construction paper, paper and notebooks, rulers and pencil sharpeners.
ONLINE
For more information on the Cram the Van campaign including application information and drop off locations, visit the United Way of SRC website at www.unitedwaysrc.org/cram-van-2015
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: 'Cram the Van continues to provide school supplies for families in need