"Stuff A Bus" Event is a Success!

Throughout the past few weeks, Dexter Schools have been participating in ”Stuff A Bus” competition. The competition consisted of each school collecting cans to be delivered to the Mission. After being delivered to the Mission, the cans then get ready to be delivered to needy families throughout the area.

On Friday, December 7^th, the competition came to an end and the cans were collected from each school. The cans were collected school to school and were delivered on a bus drove by Santa!

Thanks to Brett Miller from First State Bank and Trust for donating the use of the bus and also for dressing as Santa to make the deliveries.

At the end of the day, over 7,000 non-perishables had been collected by the Dexter School District! The school with the most cans collected had been promised an ice cream sundae party for the entire school compliments of the OPAA food service.

Even though the competition is what got many kids interested in bringing in cans to be collected, many kids saw the real reason for “Stuff A Bus” on Friday.

“This is definitely the largest single donation of canned goods that the Mission has ever had,” commented Kim Slavings, the director at the Stoddard County Gospel Mission.

Kim Slavings continued by saying, “It was so awesome to look out the window of my office and see Santa driving a school bus into the Mission parking lot, stopping the bus, and seeing several students jumping out to help unload the huge amount of food. Thank you for the greatest Christmas gift of all!”

Another thank you goes out to Judy Patterson for organizing this successful event along with the staff she had helping her to get the students of Dexter Public Schools motivated to participate.

If they didn’t know before, the students are well aware now of what a huge difference they made by participating in this event. Even though “Stuff A Bus” may have started as a competition, it ended with making a lot of families’ holidays a lot better this season. So many families will be positively affected through this event that collected over 7,000 non-perishable items!

Throughout the Christmas Season, it’s a time when many people realize how fortunate they are and also realize how some families are in need year after year. Throughout the area there are many ways to give back this time of year, but the “Stuff A Bus” event was such a hit that the schools hope to keep participating for many years.

Judy Patterson commented, “Next year the schools hope to make it an even bigger event!”

We should feel proud to live in such a community that is always willing to give back any chance we can. We hope to see the “Stuff A Bus” event continue to positively affect many families for as long as possible.