EVERETT– Tucked inside a south Everett elementary school gymnasium, a small group of volunteers industriously working to become a larger group of volunteers by August, is unpacking pallets of boxes filled with school supplies. The Everett Public Schools Foundation is using the Monroe Elementary School gym on 27th Avenue SE as the initial loading zone for its annual Stuff the Bus campaign.
Stuff the Bus crescendos in August when volunteers muster at two Everett grocery stores to collect more school supplies and monetary donations to benefit over 3500 Everett school students, each receiving a backpack stuffed with annual school supplies.
“Seven years ago, we did 1000 backpacks”, Kay Fantin, executive director of Everett Public Schools Foundation, tells EverettPost.com. “This year, we’ll do over 3600 backpacks. So, the need has grown. We have amazing donors in our area.”
Stuff the Bus utilizes a three day volunteer effort at the Mill Creek Fred Meyer and Evergreen Way QFC in Everett, on the weekend of August 14-16. “We literally fill two and a half buses with supplies,” Fantin declares.
The backpacks and supplies, Fantin says, go to students already identified by the district based on Title I, “If you’re registered in the district, you just go and pick up your backpack. And for us, it is so vital for students to be able to start with confidence and to have all the tools they need and to show up the first day with new stuff. It is amazing for students to start their year for success.”
Inside the gym, the small group of volunteers starting this annual school supply effort include staff from McLain Insurance in Everett.
Meghan Pembroke, co-owner of McLain Insurance tells EverettPost.com, “Our agency has been supporting the foundation for decades.” Pembroke, who previously served on the foundation board, posted social media messages about prior volunteer work and “we have friends and clients who saw on Facebook last year that we had done it and asked if they could come, so two little kids and my friend, who’s also a client,” are in the gym organizing school supplies and backpacks for Stuff the Bus.
Asked what it means to have your customers pitching in for this charity effort, Pembroke responds, “I think it’s incredible. I mean, I think one of the benefits of supporting and working with non-profits like this is that we get to share their work with a broader community. So, we get to peek behind the curtain and then let our clients see what these incredible non-profits are doing right in their own community. I think that is so neat. I love that our friend has brought her kids to be involved and that becomes a part of their childhood, is giving back.”
The need for volunteers only increases from here, says Fantin. “We have over 250 volunteer needs for that week (in August) to stuff all the backpacks for all the students in Everett Public Schools.” If you can sign up to help or know someone who can volunteer August 14-18–especially August 15-16–there are multiple ways to assist Stuff the Bus. Click here to volunteer.
“That’s where we need volunteers,” Fantin implores. “It’s a two hour shift. Come out. It’s fun. The Fred Meyer here in in Mill Creek is amazing. And then QFC on Highway 99 is fantastic.”
Fantin stresses the value inherent in Stuff the Bus, saying Fred Meyer and a couple of the other vendors give the foundation discounts, “you can’t buy it for what we get to buy it for, so the dollar goes a long way.”
“One of my favorite parts,” Fantin elaborates, is how football players from the district’s three high schools, Jackson, Cascade and Everett, “on Sunday night (Aug. 16), the three football teams come and unload those buses for us. They wear their uniforms. The coaches come. And the team always says we’re bitter rivals outside of here, but we come together for our community and for fellow students. So it’s great. They take pictures together, they work together.”
The final push for Stuff the Bus involves stuffing the backpacks, which occurs on Monday and Tuesday, August 17-18. “And then, we have probably over a hundred volunteers Monday and Tuesday that stuff those backpacks and then deliver them. Durham bus services helps us deliver all of these along with Amazon,” Fantin concludes.
At this point in the process, she says, “All the schools will have the backpacks the week before school.”
The Everett Public Schools Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating “since 1985 and given over $8.4 million back to the schools”, according to Fantin.
According to the charity watch dog, Charity Navigator, EPSF is one of only two school districts in the state of Washington that has platinum status for high financial efficiency, allocating revenue directly to program services, including $213,000, awarded in 120 scholarships to the class of 2026 along with classroom grants and the Kids in Transition (KIT) program for homeless students.
