http://Back-to-School Block Party provides Athens youth with 100 backpacks full of school supplies
The sounds of giggling children and upbeat R&B and hip hop music played as families lined up to get new backpacks full of supplies at Rocksprings Park Picnic Shelter before the end of the summer. West Broad Farmers Market’s Back-to-School Block Party partnered with the Bhuiyan Foundation to bring free school supplies and excitement to kids in the last days of summer.
The Clarke County School District begins the new school year on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. With only a handful of days before kids are back in the classroom, the search for school supplies is in full swing. Alyssa Thomas, the West Broad Farmers Market manager, wanted this event to take away some stress from families and get kids prepared to focus on school.
“We have a lot of parents here who are under the poverty line and are struggling and need that extra help,” Thomas said. “And as a community, we are helping our upcoming doctors and lawyers and astronauts, maybe the [future] President.”
The Back-to-School Block Party began at 11 a.m. and families arrived promptly to get in line for the free goodies. Students from kindergarten to highschool picked out their favorite backpack color and continued down the line to fill their bag with notebooks, folders, writing utensils, glue and more.
“I like to see their faces and expressions on what they was picking out” Thomas said. “I seen kids trying to match their ruler with their erasers and they book bags and stuff.”
The school supplies were provided by the Bhuiyan Foundation, a family-founded nonprofit that serves the Athens community and overseas through charitable donations. Sherryann Bhuiyan, the founder and CEO, has been involved with West Broad Farmers Market since 2015, when she would sell Trinidadian street food.
Since starting the Bhuiyan Foundation in 2023, the organization has been focused on donations. Sherryann Bhuiyan’s son, Tawhid Bhuiyan, was there to help her during the block party and he said that it’s important to serve local kids.
“[To] let [the kids] know that they have some support in the community, and handing out free stuff like this, especially for school, I think is important,” Tawhid Bhuiyan said.
During the block party, there were several vendors selling their products from produce to handmade art or jewelry. Young vendors also participated, including 11-year-old jewelry maker Nicola Dunn. It was her second time selling at the farmers market since she started her business: Wildflower Wearables.
High school students working for the Athens Land Trust Young Urban Farmers served coffee and cooked vegetables they harvested. Zacoria Samuels, a rising senior at Cedar Shoals High School, was one of the cooks at the demo table preparing bell peppers, onions and fried green tomatoes.
Samuels said that he believes inflation is making it hard for families to afford new school supplies, and that the Back-to-School Block Party “is really helpful [to] give back to the community,” he said.
After filling their new backpacks, some children found their way to the kid’s booth organized by Young Urban Farmers and drew with colorful sidewalk chalk or played on the playground. Older kids enjoyed the swing set while some little ones played with a giant connect four set.
Collieace White, a jewelry vendor, always brings her dog, Hapi along with her; Hapi spent the duration of the event making his rounds looking for people to pet him. White also brought her two children who attend school in Habersham county to get supplies and enjoy the games.
“Everything’s so high, rent is high, groceries are high,” White said. “So people need a lot of help with the kids but especially coming back to school. It’s so much to where the kids can kind of get lost in the shuffle, when it’s time to give help.”
Brandi McDowell, a mother of eight children ages one to 13-years-old, came with her sister to the block party and brought her kids to get school supplies as well as diapers from the Athens Area Diaper Bank. Her niece, Abigail Brown, is going to be a second grader at Gaines Elementary and she said her favorite thing she got from the giveaway was her colored pencils.
At 1 p.m. the Devas Tigerettes put on a dance performance with their peewee team of girls ages four to six. Shoppers and vendors gathered around to watch the four girls dance to a Cocomelon remix song as the Tigerettes founder, Nadeva “Deva” Ham, directed them.
As Thomas introduced them, she emphasized how much courage it takes for kids that little to get up and perform for a crowd of big people. According to Ham, she started the dance team to give the girls an outlet and make a positive impact on their lives.
By the end of the event, the supplies had been cleared out and approximately 100 kids walked away with new backpacks and school supplies. Thomas said she felt as though her mission, to put good produce out there for families and bring back a community feeling had been executed.
“They got rid of everything. So that means that we gonna have some very smart children ready to rock out on August 1,” Thomas said.