Local church gets into school spirit with brand new backpacks for every student

Every student at South Conway Elementary School has a shiny new backpack to go along with the shiny new school year, thanks to a local church.

NewSpring Church handed out a backpack stuffed with school supplies to every student at South Conway on Friday morning, continuing the church’s three year tradition. South Conway, a Title I school, educates many students who live below the poverty line.

“A lot of our families are struggling right now with the economy, so this takes a big burden off of them,” said principal Leon Hayes.

NewSpring – which is based in Anderson but has a Myrtle Beach campus – is just one group that partners with a classroom or school to provide donations of time, money or mentorship in the district, said Horry County Schools Superintendent Rick Maxey. Donations – such as NewSpring’s school supplies – “make a big impact on the community,” he said.

“It’s wonderful that the community is supporting our local schools,” Maxey said. “We appreciate it, and I’m sure the parents and students do as well.”

More than a dozen NewSpring volunteers gathered Friday in the school’s gym around tables stacked with backpacks and boxes of school supplies. Every child chose a backpack – green, teal, orange, and purple were among the colors – and volunteers stuffed a box of school supplies into each bag. The boxes included pencils, paper, notebooks, dry erase markers and crayons.

The supplies were specific to South Conway students, because the church bought items from the school’s supply list, Hayes said.

“It’s not just random stuff. It’s exactly what the teachers asked for,” Hayes said. “It’s everything they need over the year.”

Donna Jensen, NewSpring volunteer and mother of four, said she understands not everyone can afford expensive school supplies every year. The school supplies money saved by South Conway families this year could go toward food, electricity, or any other necessity, she said.

“Just to help lift that burden from even one child mean something,” Jensen said.

NewSpring has partnered with South Conway for three years, and this is the second year the church donated backpacks to every child. The church also gives every student a new pair of shoes around winter break, according to Scooter Byars, Next Steps director for NewSpring.

The church partners with 15 schools in the state and spent $207,000 on this year’s donation, Byars said. The donations are factored into the church’s budget, Byars said.

One student, 3-year-old Hunter Blevins, could hardly stand with the weight of the school supplies in his backpack. He was heading back to his special needs preschool class with teacher Arleen Wallace, who said these sorts of donations teach her students the importance of compassion.

“They learn that if they give, they’ll be given back,” she said.

As the students trickled out of the gymnasium and back to their classrooms, Wallace reflected on the troubles some South Conway students face every day: poverty; hunger and a lack of resources. Wallace said the number of hurdles some children must jump every day puts her own problems into perspective.

“These children carry a lot of baggage but they still stand up straight,” she said.

The backpacks help ease the burden on those students, Wallace added.

“This is a good kind of baggage to carry,” she said.

This story was originally published August 21, 2015 at 5:18 PM with the headline "Local church gets into school spirit with brand new backpacks for every student."