Back 2 School helps kids start school in style
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin HeraldStudents got backpacks, school supplies, even books at the Back 2 School distribution sponsored by Serve Moses Lake the Light of Larson church Friday.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin HeraldKids and parents found clothes to go stylin' back to school at the Back 2 School distribution Friday at Larson Heights Elementary.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin HeraldSno-cones and face painting were part of the fun at the Back 2 School distribution Friday at Larson Heights Elementary.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin HeraldKids got new backpacks full of school supplies and high fives during the Back 2 School distribution at Larson Heights Elementary Friday.
MOSES LAKE — Kids from Larson Heights, North, Longview and Knolls Vista elementary schools got the supplies and clothes to go back to school in style Friday morning. The “Back 2 School” distribution was one of seven scheduled prior to the start of school.
Back 2 School is sponsored by Serve Moses Lake and its partner churches, along with the Moses Lake Rotary chapter. The Light of Larson church was the local sponsor.
The goal was to send kids back to school with new backpacks, new school supplies, new clothes, to give kids all the things they need to go back to school, “and have fun besides,” said Light of Larson pastor Art Brown.
And there was plenty of fun - a bouncy house, face painting, sno-cones and hot dogs.
Moses Lake Rotary members collected all the school supplies and packed the backpacks, which were distributed to kids by administrators and teachers from the four schools. Volunteers handed out new socks, kids and parents looked through tables of new and new-to-them clothes, and there was a table of free books. The people handing out the school supplies and socks, making the sno-cones and hot dogs, volunteered their time.
North principal Kelly Frederick said the volunteers wanted to welcome the kids back to school, to “build excitement” for the new school year. The volunteers “want to make that happen for kids.”
Serve Moses Lake began sponsoring the Back 2 School distributions about seven years in the Larson area and has been partnering with Light of Larson for five years, Brown said.
The fun was briefly interrupted by an emergency, when the crowd was asked to come inside the Larson Heights lunchroom. “We just heard there is a situation in this area. We don’t know what it is,” Frederick explained. She got right down to what the kids were really worried about. “Whoever was in the bouncy house will get back in,” she said.
The emergency was a standoff between a suspect and law enforcement a few blocks away, which was resolved peacefully about an hour later.
The Larson Heights distribution was the kickoff to the series. The next one is scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Assembly at Moses Lake, 431 East Brown St., for kids attending Garden Heights and Park Orchard elementary schools.
The rest are scheduled for Aug. 25, kicking off at 10 a.m. to noon at Moses Lake High School, for kids from MLHS and Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center. Students from Lakeview Terrace are invited to a Back 2 School distribution from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the school and one is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Peninsula. That’s for kids from Peninsula, Midway and Sage Point. Endeavor Middle School hosts a distribution from noon to 2 p.m., for students at Endeavor and Chief Moses.
Another is scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. at Frontier Middle School for Frontier students.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.