The Project REACH G.A.N.G. back-to-school rally marks 25 years of providing school supplies to the community with its annual event this Saturday.
This year’s event will be held at Liberty County High School from 10 a.m.1 p.m. Saturday, and gates will open at 9:30 a.m.
“It has really grown,” said organizer Lavonia LeCounte.
There will be nearly 40 stations where parents can drive up and get school supplies for the coming 2023-24 school year. Cars will be given a colored sticker and will go to the stations with the same color sticker.
“If you get a purple sticker, you go to the stations with purple stickers,” LeCounte said.
Parents can get an abundance of school supplies, including book bags, pencils, paper, crayons, composition notebooks and more at their stations, LeCounte added.
Select students who have graduated from high school and are about to enter college will get new laptops and ear buds.
“We’re doing this so we can help our parents,” Le-Counte said, “so that the money they would otherwise spend on school supplies can go toward something like paying a bill.”
As drivers enter the lot, there will be a line of emergency agencies, such as EMS and Liberty County EMA, giving out important resource information, including hurricane and disaster resources. The school system also will have places as they try to add to the roster of available bus drivers.
COVID-19 vaccines for those 6 years old and younger will be made available for those parents wishing to get them for their kids.
There also will be a greeting station and a welcome packet with letters from various community leaders, including Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, the new commanding general of the 3rd Infantry Division.
“Those letters are a way to say, ‘Hey, we’re here for you — we’ve got you 100%,’” LeCounte said.
LeCounte said they are asking parents to adhere to the honor system. For instance, if they have two children, then they should pickup school supplies for two children.
While other back-toschool events and giveaways are in the works across the community before classes begin August 2, LeCounte is appreciative for the help Project REACH G.A.N.G. (God’s Anointed Now Generation) has gotten in doing its back-to-school supplies for a quarter-century.
“There is no way in the world one organization can get supplies for 20,000 kids,” she said. “I am grateful to God this has caught on.”
LeCounte stressed there will be no public parking and expressed her gratitude to Sheriff Will Bowman and the Liberty County Sheriff ’s Office.
She also said anyone showing up before gates open at 9:30 will be instructed to leave. Parents began lining up at 6:30 in the morning last year, causing traffic and safety problems, LeCounte noted.
“If you show up before that, they’ll tell you to keep going and come back,” she said.