The Carbon County Family Support Center and Children’s Justice Center is hosting their annual Back to School Giveaway on August 11 through August 14. Due to the pandemic, this year’s event will be done by appointment only so Director Shelley Wright stopped by Castle Country Radio to talk about the details.

“We’ve been doing this every single year, over 20 years that we’ve been holding this event. But what we do is stuff our backpacks, and they are stuffed for high school students, junior high students, and elementary students. This year we are making sure that every backpack has some hand sanitizer so kids can bring those to school,” said Wright. The backpacks are filled with donations of pencils, pens, markers, rules, pencil holders, notebooks – everything that is needed to start off a brand new school year with. The event organizers will also have hygiene kits available for families that are in need.

Part of the Back to School Giveaway is giving families an opportunity to do some clothes shopping from the various donations made to the center. “We collect throughout the year gentle used clothing and so we will be setting those out. I’ll be kind of like a first come, first serve. All the clothing has been stored in our sheds, they’ve been stored in bags, they were laundered, and they’ve been handled with just my staff – my staff wear gloves every time they go through the clothing so we just want to insure that the community is safe when they come out to this event,” stated Wright. The staff hope that the items will help the children be able to start off school on the right foot.

This year’s event will not be held at the center but rather at the Carbon County Event Center by appointment only. Wright explains how to make an appointment, “They can call 636-3736, they appointments will be 30 minutes increments. We’re going to try to allow two families at a time, depending on the size of the family. But the appointments will start on Tuesday, August 11 from 9:00 am and they end at 4:00 pm everyday and they go through until the August 14 which is Friday.” No families will be allowed in to the event to shop unless they have made an appointment.

The Carbon County Family Support Center and Children’s Justice Center look forward to hosting this event every year but this year has proven to be a lot more work and volunteers are needed. “This is such a big event and it takes us so long to put it together. We’ve usually just held it in one day, all day long and we keep all of our clothes and backpacks out all day. Because of COVID-19 we’re having to restructure this whole event and so its going to take a little more work to get things set up so we are needing help for that Monday, August 10 to help transport all of our donations to the Event Center and actually helping us set it up,” stated Wright. If you would like to volunteer your time for a great cause call the Carbon County Family Support Center and Children’s Justice Center at (435) 636-3736.