WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — Back-to-school is here and children all over the Midlands are getting ready to buckle up for a school year as they’ve never experienced before.
Brookland United Methodist Church in West Columbia teamed up with 12 Springs Community Church to host a bookbag giveaway.
What started out as an event with a $0 budget turned into over 30 sponsors supplying around 500 bookbags for children in the community.
“Well, this was a kind of spur of the moment event," Brookland UMC Pastor Mark Payne says, "We realized when school was going back into session that there were going to be needs, people were going to need somethings and we decided to see if 12 springs community church would partner with us and put on a back to school bash.”
Joey Yandle with Brookland UMC says, “We’re in the midst of this pandemic and our church considers it a blessing because we actually are growing in this and we’re getting to spread God’s love out more than we ever have before.
Hundreds of cars lined up on Meeting St. for the drive-thru event where they received school supplies, book bags and even a sweet treat- Kona Ice gave out snow cones to everyone in line.
“The first thing we had to decide was how many people we were going to actually serve. 500 seemed like a good number and we started with that and were really surprised when the community came together and supported it and made it a reality," Pastor Payne says.
“You know all these children need their back-to-school supplies and it’s a blessing really to see how many children are excited just to go back to school I think," says Senator Katrina Shealy who helped give out supplies and even brought children's books to give away.
“We want to spread God’s love to the community because God loves everybody- he doesn’t pick and choose," Yandle adds.
The church hopes to host this event every year in order to give kids in the community everything they need to head back to school.
West Columbia Mayor Tem Miles, Senator Nikki Setzler and Senator Katrina Shealy were among the over 70 volunteers helping at today’s event.