KINGWOOD — Michelle Wolford’s Pack the Bus will be parked at the Kingwood Community Building on Aug. 12 to take donations for the backpack program.
Wolford, who died of pancreatic cancer on July 31, 2015, was a columnist and reporter for The Dominion Post. As a member and president of the Rotary Club of Kingwood, she came up with Pack the Bus.
The goal is to fill a Buckwheat Express bus with food that students can take home in their backpacks on weekends, so they don’t go hungry. More than 340 Preston County students in pre-k through 12th grade are served weekly by the program.
Tammy Laney is director of Food For Preston, which oversees the program. She said the number of students participating, “is definitely going up.” In spring 2017, the school year ended with 270 students in the backpack program. By October, the number was up to 340.
“I really think — and this is a good thing — I think folks are just hearing about the program more and more,” Laney said. “We’ve even had bus drivers go to the school and say ‘I see where this family lives. I know that they need to be in this program.’”
School counselors send Laney the number of students in each school who need food. All information is confidential.
“We really have a wonderful relationship with Preston County Schools,” she said. “They make it happen on the student side.
The backpack program is 100 percent funded by local donations and grants. Local grocers help with purchase of food.
The first Pack the Bus was held in 2013. This year’s event is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Kingwood, Kingwood Lions, Kingwood Volunteer Fire Department and Preston County Buckwheat Express.
Suggested donations include granola bars, mini boxes of cereal, tuna/cracker and chicken/cracker boxes, canned pasta, canned beef stew, pudding cups, fruit cups, fruit snacks, trail mix, graham crackers and raisins.
Laney encourages people to “keep it simple.” If an office is going to make a donation, for example, have everyone buy the same thing, such as granola bars. Cash donations are also welcome.
“We want to make sure we never turn a student away,” she said.
Pack the Bus will be 7 a.m.-1 p.m. Aug. 12 in front of the Kingwood Community Building. For more info or to sponsor a child: P.O. Box 1175, Kingwood, WV, 26537; 304-379-3519 or coor dinator@foodforpreston.org
