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Watauga County Back 2 School Festival Needs Your Support This Year for August 10th Event

by Tzar Wilkerson

As the August 10th Back 2 School Festival quickly approaches, the organization is reaching out to the community for donations and sponsorships to help them hit their goal of gathering $47,000 for Watauga County students. While they are currently only half of the way towards reaching their goal, they are hopeful for more contributions in the coming weeks.

It can cost over $160 to get a child ready for school, and last year’s Back 2 School Festival saw almost 1,200 children at the event. Each year, the festival and its many volunteers have provided Watauga county students with school supplies, new shoes and socks, backpacks, hair cuts (volunteer hairdressers are in high demand at the event), activity booths, healthy food, and an atmosphere of fun, dignity, and respect. The booths at the festival include local businesses, community organizations, and churches that provide fun activities, crafts, and games as well as information about their products, services, classes, etc.

One of the Back 2 School Festival’s primary initiatives is the “Pack the Bus!” supplies collection goal. Two buses will be parked at First National Bank (Yadkin Valley Bank) on 321 and New Market Center respectively, where community members can bring school supplies during normal business hours from July 4th to August 4th. The program also encourages businesses, civic groups, youth groups, and churches to “Pack the Bus” by hosting collection in their meeting places. These organizations are ideal for collecting some of the items that are harder to gather: backpacks, binders, graph paper, index cards, etc. The Back 2 School festival facilitates these collections by offering flyers and posters to participating organizations.

The festival relies on the support of donations (both of supplies and funding), sponsors, volunteers, community organizations, and more. If you are interested in contributing in any way, be sure to visit their website at https://www.back2schoolfestival.org/ or call at 828-434-0399.

Photos from Boone 4th of July Parade of Back 2 School Float