Stuff the Bus 2019 Declared a Success!

As school begins, school supply lists are made available to students & parents, but not all students are able to arrive on the first day of school with the items required to put them on the road to success.

To assist those students, PIE, in partnership with Craven County Schools, parked a bright yellow school bus in front of the 3 Walmart locations in Craven County on Aug 24. Generous shoppers donated school supplies for students who have been identified as in-need.

Over 205 volunteers from the schools & our community were on hand sorting & scanning items, & honking the horn of the school buses each time a donation was made as a way of showing thanks.

Fourteen businesses & organizations offered to be drop-off locations in advance of the event. Several businesses had school supply drives & delivered those items on the day of the event. With live radio remotes, sheriff & police department cruisers, & ambulances from CarolinaEast, we had a cool, fun & high energy day! Each donor received coupons from local businesses as a thank you.

We can’t finish tallying the numbers for the event because we keep getting donations! We are now over $70,000 in school supplies and sponsorships with approximately 38,000 items received!

Thank you to Walmart for letting us park our buses in front of their stores, all of the volunteers, the bus drivers, our sponsors, & of course all of you who supported this event by making donations and volunteering the day of the event.

Particular thanks to the Marines from MCAS Cherry Point who worked the event, Caroline Godwin, William Bryant, Debra Hurst, Rebecca Lansche, Diane Bondurant, Mike McCoy, Paul Brown, Debbie Hodges, Lori, Sugg, Catherine Alligood, Ervin Patrick, & Kim Scott for acting as points of contact for their sites & Paul Tingle & Ashley Whitford for their coordination before, during & after the event.

We made our corner of the world a little better through Stuff the Bus.

If you would like to donate to Stuff the Bus, year round, we accept school supplies at the Craven County Schools/PIE location, Central Services Office 3600 Trent Rd., New Bern.

Click here for a recommended school supply list.