Hillvue Heights hosts Back to School Bash

Event provides supplies, snacks to area students

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Ambrosia Harpool got a lot of stuff on Saturday at the Warren County Back to School Bash.

The 12-year-old Warren East Elementary seventh-grader from Smiths Grove dug through her goodie bag, finding paper, pencils, laundry products, animal crackers and a variety of other items all for free.

Ambrosias mother Janette Harpool brought her and her friend Anna Brown, 8, a fourth-grader at Parker-Bennett-Curry Elementary School, to Hillvue Heights Church for the event.

I think its nice, Harpool said. Its good for the kids to come out, and good for me to come out.

Around them milled hundreds of children and parents, circulating among booths offering back-to-school information of every kind, and giveaways such as free physicals and bags of popcorn.

The majority of the crowd came from Warren County, but the bash is open to all students, said Patty Burchell, family resource coordinator with Warren County Schools.

We get lots of students from other counties, she said. We had about 1,800 last year, and weve got enough bags and shirts for 2,000.

The annual event is open to students, preschool through high school, and their parents.

Office Depot donated the bags of school supplies, handed out at registration with T-shirts and coupons for a hot dog, soda and ice cream.

Not all the booths catered exclusively to young students. Melissa Hawks manned a booth for Western Kentucky Universitys Educational Opportunity Centers, which serves adults who want to go back to school.

Their counselors advise people from Warren and surrounding counties on any kind of adult education, whether college, trade or technical schools, she said.

We also provide some financial aid assistance, and some career planning, Hawks said.

Kyle and Joseph Ritter, ages 10 and 7, carried large bags from booth to booth. The fifth- and second-graders at Natcher Elementary in Bowling Green enjoyed watching a Tae Kwon Do demonstration shortly after they arrived, said their mother, Mary Ritter.

This is our first year coming, she said. Its great that the communitys got something like this for kids, to get them interested in going back to school.

I want ice cream, Joseph said, holding up his coupon.  Daily News ·813 College St. ·PO Box 90012 ·Bowling Green, KY ·42102 ·270-781-1700