‘It is beautiful’: Free shoes and haircuts part of Carteret Co. back to school event

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (WITN) - The fall semester is rapidly approaching for most schools and communities across Eastern Carolina are coming together to continue their efforts in rounding up school supplies.

Carteret County Public Schools hosted its annual Stuff the Bus school supplies donation drive Wednesday in Morehead City.

Community members in the county say donations are especially important this year.

“Unfortunately—especially since April—the impact took a little toll on us,” Adrianna Menard, mother of a rising 6th grader said.

Menard added that this was her first time at a Stuff the Bus event and says inflation has made back-to-school shopping especially hard this year.

“I was worried about school supplies for the kids and what we were gonna do. You get a regular notebook, you’re paying $3 when it used to be fifty cents, ten cents, so with all the money costs going up, I just don’t know how much these families can afford that,” Menard continued.

Retail analytics show that a basket of roughly a dozen supply items increased nearly 15% on average compared to last year’s back-to-school shopping.

Carteret County Public Schools partnered with Parkview Baptist Church and several other community organizations to hold the event Wednesday.

The school system and its partners managed to come up with enough goods for more than 600 kids, adding haircuts and stylings, as well as free shoes, for this year’s event.

“We know that if they go into school without shoes, if they go to school without supplies, they’re starting behind. So we want to make them as ready and available and able to succeed as possible,” Parkview Baptist Pastor John Carswell said.

Menard’s son, Ayden-Lee Menard, says he likes how they’re giving out free supplies.

“If I really wanted to and my mom didn’t have enough money to buy school supplies, I could just come here and get school supplies for middle school or something,” Ayden-Lee Menard said.

“You don’t wanna send your kids to school with no shoes, haircuts, book bags. They gave us paper. They gave us all types of notebooks. Everything they could possibly think of, whether they need it or not for their class, everybody was provided with it. It is beautiful,” Adriana Menard said.

The school system says it plans to distribute supplies on Sunday, Aug. 14th from 4 to 5 p.m. at four locations: Broad Creek Middle School, Newport Middle School, Beaufort Elementary School, and Smyrna Elementary School.

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