Salvation Army hosts back-to-school giveaway

Shamaya Sutton, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.
·2 min read

Aug. 13—A line of people wrapped around the Salvation Army Family Services building in Yuba City on Friday to pick up free back-to-school supplies for their children.

This annual giveaway is meant to serve Yuba-Sutter families with students in grades K-12. In total, 280 backpacks filled with common school items were available for pick up.

Major Shannon Murphy greeted each person at the side entrance and matched their information to the list of pre-registered individuals. According to Murphy, this back-to-school program has been going on for about five years and she has participated in all of them.

Volunteers inside the Salvation Army sanctuary listened as Murphy called out the grade and gender of each student on the list, grabbing backpacks accordingly.

Rows of designated bags were strewn about the aisles in various colors, patterns, and sizes. Each bag was filled with various school supplies, stuffed by volunteers the night before.

This was Victoria Fitzsimmons' first time participating in the project, but she said she would be very interested in doing it again.

"I liked it, it was pretty fun," said Fitzsimmons. "I want to try and be here every year."

Fitzsimmons compared the school giveaway to Salvation Army's Friday food giveaways which she also participates in.

"It's emotional, it made me cry my first day to be honest," said Fitzsimmons. "It's an amazing feeling helping other people, and getting to be on the other side of that."

Many of the backpacks were from the brand Everest. Surinder Dhaliwal, Salvation Army's director of operations, explained that this was due to a bulk order fulfillment from Amazon. Other supplies were donated during the group's Stuff the Bus event, and from the Walmart in Linda, which included about 55 backpacks. Items that were not donated were purchased by the organization.

Gathering all the supplies took several weeks, but registering for the give away reached capacity in just 11 hours. In fact, so many people registered for the event that organizers upped the number from 200 slots to 280 just to accommodate the overflow of applicants.

Organizers feel that this project is meeting a great need in the community and they look forward to continuing this type of work in the future.

For more information about this program, call 530-216-4532. Salvation Army Family Services is located at 410 Del Norte Ave. in Yuba City.