{"id":3435,"date":"2015-04-02T10:49:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T14:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/?p=3435"},"modified":"2017-04-05T08:50:12","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T12:50:12","slug":"volunteers-pack-beach-bags-for-spring-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/volunteers-pack-beach-bags-for-spring-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteers pack Beach Bags for spring break"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avie Miller was determined to do her part to help Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

She stacked boxes of Chef Boyardee. She sorted granola bars and peanut butter crackers. And she passed apple juice boxes to her mother, adding an occasional twirl in her pink dress.<\/p>\n

It was, after all,\u00a0her birthday, and\u00a0Avie was celebrating turning 3-years-old.<\/p>\n

\"Birthday<\/a>
Birthday girl Avie lends a hand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But before Avie\u2019s birthday dinner and cake, her family made time for community service. Her parents and older brother Rylen,\u00a0a Centerville Elementary kindergartener, joined 150 volunteers at Corporate Landing Middle School March 31 to support the school division\u2019s Beach Bags packing event.<\/p>\n

Beach Bags, a program facilitated by VBCPS Parent Connection,\u00a0provides shelf-stable meals and healthy snacks to students who might otherwise go hungry over weekends and during school breaks. Because the school division will be closed for one week when its spring break begins April 6,\u00a0Parent Connection sought volunteers to help pack more than 1,000 Beach Bags so every child\u00a0in the program could receive food to take home. It hosted a similar event in December before the winter holidays.<\/p>\n

\"Volunteers<\/a>
Volunteers were assigned to tables to pack Beach Bags in teams.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stacy Miller, Avie\u2019s mom, saw the volunteer request posted on the VBSchools Facebook page<\/a> and signed up the entire family. Heidi Greentree-Best also saw the Facebook post and attended with her stepdaughter Taylor Best, a seventh-grader at Great Neck Middle School.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaylor just said she was looking for something to do to support the community,\u201d explained Greentree-Best.\u00a0\u201cThen we saw the opportunity on Facebook and decided to sign up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also signing up to help were groups of volunteers from Liberty Tax Service, Dominion Enterprises, Charles Barker Auto and Delta Sigma Theta.<\/p>\n

\"Delta<\/a>
Delta Sigma Theta members were among the 150 volunteers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe are here because we are all about public service,\u201d said Delta Sigma Theta member Eleanor Washington as she added a cereal box to the bag and passed it to a Beach Bags teammate to add apple juice.<\/p>\n

As a result of the outpouring of support by so many volunteers, bags of food were assembled almost faster than they could be sorted and packed for this week\u2019s delivery. After only 30 minutes of activity Eileen Cox, VBCPS director of communications and community engagement,\u00a0called for everyone\u2019s attention to announce the good news.<\/p>\n

\"Volunteers<\/a>
Volunteers tape together boxes to hold Beach Bags for delivery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThanks to all your work tonight, we have met our goal to pack a Beach Bag for every child in need,\u201d said Cox.\u00a0\u201cWe can\u2019t thank you enough for donating your time to support our students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Middle school student Best\u00a0and her stepmother Greentree-Best were glad they participated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is amazing to see how we could all come together to do something so great,\u201d said Best.<\/p>\n

Her stepmother agreed. \u201cIt was nice to feel like you\u2019re part of the community and giving back.\u201d<\/p>\n

View more pictures from the March 31 Beach Bags packing event on the school division\u2019s <\/em>Facebook page<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

To learn more about the Beach Bags program,\u00a0visit the school division\u2019s website <\/em>vbschools.com<\/em><\/a>. If you would like to contribute to the program or are interested in packing Beach Bags, please contact Eileen Cox in the Office of Community Engagement at (757) 263-1313 or <\/em>eileen.cox@vbschools.com<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Avie Miller was determined to do her part to help Tuesday night. She stacked boxes of Chef Boyardee. She sorted granola bars and peanut butter crackers. And she passed apple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-connections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3435"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6368,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions\/6368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}