Once Cesar Morales signed in his son, Yadier Morales, they headed to the first table to pick out a backpack.
Yadier, 7, chose his favorite color, blue.
Then at other tables set up in an L shape in the Seymour High School commons on Saturday, he filled the backpack with school supplies, including an art box, folders, crayons, erasers, pencils and notebooks.
When they reached the end, Yadier said he was all ready for school starting Aug. 10.
“It’s a lot of help,” Cesar said of receiving the free school supplies, thanking all of those who made it possible.
Yadier was all smiles because he had what he needed for school, and he is looking forward to going back to Margaret R. Brown Elementary School for another great year.
“Every single year, we get even smarter,” the second-grader said of what he likes about school, noting his favorite subjects are math and reading.
A little later Saturday, Jose Alonso came through the line with two of his children, Jonathan Alonso, 11, and Emily Alonso, 13.
Emily chose her favorite color, purple, which also is one of Seymour’s school colors, while Jonathan went with a black backpack.
“I like to save money. It’s nice they help people,” Jose said.
Jonathan said he is nervous about going into sixth grade this school year, but he likes going to school.
“I like that at least it teaches me something,” he said.
Emily is entering eighth grade, her final year at Seymour Middle School.
“I just like that it’s interesting,” she said. “I like going to school.”
Emily Engelking, engagement director for Jackson County United Way, said it was good to hear positive feedback from families during Saturday’s Rock’n Ready school supply distribution event.
One of the volunteers overheard someone say, “This is the best day ever.”
“We had a lot of parents who came out, as they were leaving, they were like, ‘Thank you guys so much for this. This is so helpful,’” Engelking said.
That means a lot to her and the Rock’n Ready committee members because work for the program begins in February each year. That’s when they start looking for sponsors and doing behind-the-scenes work to get ready for registration, which opens in April.
“Sponsorships were very down this year,” Engelking said. “I also think that’s a contributing thing of businesses just aren’t doing as much because costs are high.”
Still, United Way was very thankful for everyone who contributed monetarily because all of that went toward buying school supplies.
“Every dollar we make, we put back in to buy all of the supplies,” she said. “This is the second year that we’ve really tried to make the most of all of the dollars that we have.”
Some businesses had collection boxes set up from the middle of June to July 13, so that was another way they were able to help.
“It was successful, especially Edward Jones,” Engelking said. “All of the Edward Jones locations collected over 1,000 items.”
There also was the Stuff the Bus initiative, where volunteers stood outside the entrances of Walmart Supercenter in Seymour to collect school supplies and monetary donations and placed them in a school bus. That ran July 8 to 13.
“The eighth was rained out, but throughout the rest of the five days, we made more money than last year, which was incredible because last year was our biggest year, so that was good,” Engelking said. “We got a lot of cash donations this year. Monetary was way up, but supplies were down, so we still had to buy a lot more.”
Engelking said around 200 students were registered for the Rock’n Ready event July 23 in Brownstown, and 675 students were registered for Saturday’s event in Seymour.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night last week, Engelking made trips to Walmart to buy last-minute school supplies that were needed.
At both events, she was impressed with the volunteers who showed up to help. They included school employees, Rock’n Ready committee members and others in the community.
Engelking has worked for United Way for about three years, and these were her first in-person events because backpacks were stuffed and handed out to kids on the first day of school the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was a little nervous because we didn’t get an influx of volunteers until maybe like a week or two ago, but it was just so great because then everybody came through, and it was just so nice,” she said. “I think the most important thing about doing something like this is knowing that you have people who are working … I didn’t worry. I knew everything was going to get done, and that’s the best part.”
The other Rock’n Ready distribution event will be from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Medora Community Schools. Emerald Robinson, a Rock’n Ready committee member, said 154 students are registered.
In all, Engelking said around 1,200 students in Jackson County will benefit from Rock’n Ready. That’s up from 1,100 in 2021.
“I think a lot of it is the economy, like things are more expensive, so parents are just trying to find ways to alleviate, which that’s what we’re all about is financial stability,” she said. “If this is one thing that families can do to not have to pay for because back to school is so expensive, then that’s great.”
In Crothersville, The Helping Hearts organization collects school supplies in the summer to hand out to students at registration events and on the first day of school. That group had a block party July 22 at Bard Street Park, where supplies were collected, a bake sale was conducted to raise money for supplies and community resources, including United Way, were set up.
Even though Rock’n Ready for 2022 is wrapping up soon, monetary donations are accepted year-round, which will go toward the program in 2023.
”We just keep that total rolling over year after year, so we can always use (monetary donations),” Engelking said. “If people want to donate school supplies, they can give those to us or straight to a school.”