ECS News posted Thursday, September 15, 2011
Parishes Help Fill the Bus
The annual Fill the Bus initiative at Episcopal Community Services (ECS) works with parishes and organizations to collect new backpacks and school supplies so that ECS students can start school prepared. This year, Fill the Bus exceeded all expectations, bringing in over 650 backpacks filled with all the age-appropriate supplies a student could need.
The program started as a small collection by Trinity Church, Gulph Mills back in 2005, which provided about 40 backpacks to ECS. Over the years, Trinity has more than doubled their collection while 24 other parishes and one volunteer’s entire workplace have joined in.
This year, nearly every group exceeded its goal, which actually left ECS with more backpacks than children! ECS worked with St. James School, a new middle school founded by St. Mark’s Church, Philadelphia, to distribute the extra 85 backpacks to students at the school and children in the surrounding community, amplifying the impact of Fill the Bus even more.
ECS thanks everyone who helped Fill the Bus this year: All Hallows, Wyncote Christ Church, Ithan; Christ Church, Media; Crucifixion; Good Shepherd, Germantown; Good Shepherd, Hilltown; Incarnation/Holy Sacrament Church Messiah, Gwynedd; Philadelphia Cathedral; Redeemer, Bryn Mawr Redeemer, Springfield; Redemption, Southampton; St. Andrew’s, West Vincent; St. George’s, Ardmore; St. John’s, Concord; St. John’s, Lower Merion; St. Jude and the Nativity; St. Martin-in-the-Fields; St. Matthew, Maple Glen; St. Peter’s Great Valley; St. Peter’s, Philadelphia; St. Simon and the Cyrenian; Towers Watson; St. Dunstan’s Blue Bell; and Trinity, Gulph Mills.
Submission by Rob Formica, Marketing Communications Manager
