The line was long, but the wait was worth it for the large crowd who showed up Saturday morning, Aug. 17, at Harvest Christian Center on Long Street for the church’s annual backpack giveaway to students.
Pastor Mark Woody, who arrived in Sweet Home at the end of February and for whom this was the first such event, said an estimated 1,000 people “came through our door.”
“It went amazingly well,” Woody said. Church members and volunteers gave away 533 backpacks and Woody said the two leftovers were gone Monday morning when he and his family went out for breakfast and were waited on by a woman whose children had a need.
“It turned out well,” he said.
Elementary school students got backpacks filled with school supplies –paper, pencils, erasers, pencil boxes, rulers, crayons, scissors, glue sticks – “basic school supply needs we gathered from the Sweet Home School District list,” Woody said.
Sweet Home Emergency Ministries, which participated in the event, donated 100 backpacks and Coastal Farms donated another 100, he said.
Woody said the church raised between $16,000 and $17,000 to fund the event, which included hot dogs, cotton candy, sno cones and a bounce house, as well as the $27 it cost to outfit each student with a backpack.
He said money was raised by mailing letters to local businesses, “word of mouth, a can drive, a bottle drive, yard sales and just people donating money, believing the money was going to a good cause.”
Some 60 people, out of a congregation of 110, volunteered for the event, including preparation and clean-up.
Woody expressed gratitude to “all the people who helped and “to God be the glory, because without him we couldn’t have done it.”