Written by:
8/29/2012 7:34 AM 

Are you and your family ready for school to start again? Thanks to the generosity of our donors and supporters, we are! We were able to help over 500 students in the neighborhood prepare for success as we distributed free care packages of school supplies at our 12th Annual Back to School Fair. How did we get so many? Irish Fest offered Hope House the opportunity to collect school supplies on the festival's opening night, where guests gave notebooks, folders, crayons--all sorts of great things--in lieu of admission. These donations filled a U-Haul truck, totaling at about $14,000. Can you imagine the mountains of pencils and markers? 

To conquer these mountains, a group of fantastic volunteers from US Bank sorted, organized, and filled up school supply care packages. There's no way our Street Fair would have been possible without their help! It took hours of work and lots of helping hands, but they did it, and many, many young students were made very happy the following day at our Street Fair. 

Our Street Fair was more than just school supplies, though. We offered games for kids (with prizes!), tasty food, local resources, bicycle repairs, and the 2nd Annual Hope House Car Show. We saw lots of new faces, and hope that our neighbors made some new friends too! Our Street Fair offers the community an opportunity to stock up on needed basic items like school supplies, learn about local resources, and simply enjoy life in Clock Tower Acres. For the working poor, it can be difficult to schedule something many of us take for granted--leisure time! 

Organizing these three events is no small task--we are incredibly grateful to the staff, volunteers, guests, neighbors, donors, and supporters who made it possible! We would also like to extend an extra special thanks to Diane Dowland and UMB Fund Services who also made large donations of backpacks and school supplies. Thanks for showing your community some love!

Check out photo albums for Irish Fest, the Great School Supply Sort, and the Street Fair on our Facebook page. Here are some of our favorites:

The Shining Stars were wonderful volunteers at Irish Fest. 

And they had a wonderful time, too!

Thanks, Irish Fest!

So many markers, pens, and crayons.

Mount Notebook. 

Packing up backpacks to give away. 

Free bicycle repairs at the Street Fair. 

Preparing for the car show. 

We gave out over 500 bags of school supplies. Wow!

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Tags: school , volunteer , irish fest , car show , bicycle

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