With the start of the school year quickly approaching, nearly 1,000 students and parents swarmed Jason Niles Park in Kosciusko Saturday for free school supplies, health information and fun activities at a back-to-school bash.
The event, hosted by Kingdom Life Church in connection with Saint Matthews Episcopal, opened at 10 a.m., but families began lining up at 8:30 a.m., according to Tony Patterson, an organizer for the event.
“Our mission was to give the kids a good start and I feel we achieved that here today,” Patterson said.
Four hundred backpacks — divided into preschool, elementary, middle and high school — filled with school supplies drew people into the event.
The bags were stuffed with notebooks, folders, paper, pens, pencils, crayons and glue sticks.
“I was a school teacher for seven years and experienced kids coming to school without supplies and I saw their whole psyche turn upside down,” Patterson added. “We decided to do this for the students to send them to school with confidence and also take off some of the financial burden for the parents.”
The day was not just for getting school supplies, however. Kids enjoyed bouncy houses and face painting, among other entertainment.
“This was a little smaller turnout than in the past years, but we were able to feed a lot of people and give out a lot of school supplies.”
Event sponsors included Jireh World-Wide Ministries, Walmart, The Exodus Project, New Hope Assembly (Rogers, AR), Prairie Farms, City of Kosciusko, Ocean Spray, Bimbo, Kosciusko First Presbyterian Church, Junior Auxiliary of Kosciusko, Together on Diabetes, Bright Futures Learning Academy, Boswell Media, ServPro, Ivey Mechanical, Kosciusko Little Garden Club and Intelligent Creation.
