District, local organizations come together to help families with back-to-school items

The end of August can be a stressful time for many families.  With back-to-school now on the minds of many parents, Wicomico County Public Schools is teaming up with local organizations and the Youth and Civic Center to do what they can to help ease the burden on local families.

One local activist has been passing out bookbags for years, and says his vision to help local families came to fruition this year.

“After we passed out about 600 bookbags, I went out to a couple parks, couple churches, everyone’s doing the same thing,” said Mark Thompson, a member of Wicomico Hope and pupil personnel person with WCPS.  “Last year we had a meeting to see if we could actually coordinate something like this.”

Now they’re all under the same roof, for a new event called Fresh Start.

It’s a clean slate to begin the new school year.  Between notebooks, pens and pencils, bookbags, a fresh back-to-school haircut and much more, the price tag of sending a child off on their first day can be daunting.

“It’s a tremendous help.  It’ll take a little bit of stress off if they know they can get bookbags and school supplies,” said Princess Anne resident April Collins.

The inaugural Fresh Start event is the perfect representation of a community coming together to help each other out.

“This can be something that can unite our community, and shows that we’re one community, one Salisbury,” said Thompson.

Officials tell us the plan was to give out 4,000 bookbags with school supplies haircuts, along with access to important community resources.