Brett Stelzer Book Bag Project August 5

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Each year in August a host of folks rang­ing from stu­dent age though older adults join forces at Big Wal­nut Friends Who Share’s Annual Brett’s Book Bag Stuff­ing at Con­dit Pres­by­ter­ian Church.

In the church base­ment vol­un­teers stuff stu­dent book bags with school sup­plies needed for the approach­ing school year as part of the Brett Stelzer Book Bag Project, part of the Big Wal­nut Friends Who Share Back-To-School Project that fur­nishes school sup­plies to Big Wal­nut fam­i­lies in need.

Each indi­vid­ual book bag is stuffed for a spe­cific stu­dent using that student’s school sup­ply require­ment list. Once the bags are stuffed with the nec­es­sary sup­plies, they are trans­ported to the Big Wal­nut Friends Who Share Store at 216 High Street, Sun­bury, where fam­i­lies in need that requested the bags pick them up.

The Back To School project has been in exis­tence for as long as Friends Who Share has been around. In its ninth year, the Brett Stelzer Book Bag Project was started by Mark and Glo­ria Stelzer. The Stelz­ers are Genoa Town­ship res­i­dents who lost their son Brett to an acci­dent on Valentine’s Day, 2004. Brett would have been a mem­ber of the Big Wal­nut High School Class of 2007.

This year, vol­un­teers will gather at Con­dit Pres­by­ter­ian Church to stuff book bags at 4 p.m., Sun­day, August 5. To help stuff bags in Brett’s mem­ory, all you have to do is show up. Con­dit Pres­by­ter­ian Church is located at 15102 Hart­ford Road, at the inter­sec­tion of Ohio 605.

Con­tri­bu­tions for school sup­plies and the bag pur­chase can be made in Brett’s mem­ory. Any­one wish­ing to donate to BWFWS in Brett’s mem­ory can send their check to: BWFWS, PO Box 424, Sun­bury, Ohio 43074 and ear­mark the check for pur­chas­ing bags and sup­plies in Brett’s Memory.

Big Wal­nut Friends Who Share is east­ern Delaware County’s all-volunteer grass-roots social ser­vice agency, pro­vid­ing a host of other ser­vices to Big Wal­nut area fam­i­lies through­out the year, includ­ing food assis­tance, cloth­ing, fur­ni­ture, kitchen appli­ances — any­thing needed in a household.

In keep­ing with the “we take care of our own” Friends Who Share phi­los­o­phy, through­out the year Big Wal­nut churches, schools and stu­dent orga­ni­za­tions, girl and boy scouts, Big Wal­nut area ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions, and indi­vid­ual donors and vol­un­teers all roll up their sleeves to help this unique com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tion meet local need.

The Big Wal­nut Friends Who Share Store at 216 High Street, Sun­bury, is open to those in need from 9 until 11:30 a.m. on Wednes­day morn­ings, and from 6:30 until 8 p.m. dur­ing the evening on the sec­ond and fourth Tues­day of each month.

On the sec­ond Sat­ur­day of each month, senior cit­i­zens can visit the Friends Who Share Store from 10 a.m. until 12 noon. Vol­un­teers help out at the cen­ter from 9 a.m. until 11:30 every Mon­day morn­ing. The store accepts donated items on Mon­days and Wednes­days from 9 a.m. until 11:30 a.m.

To vol­un­teer, to donate needed items, or to make a finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to Friends Who Share projects, call 740–965-9596. Cash dona­tions may be sent to Big Wal­nut Friends Who Share, P.O. Box 424, Sun­bury, 43074.

Big Wal­nut Friends Who Share is on the Web at < http://www.bigwalnutfriendswhoshare.org/ >.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.