10th Annual

Story County Blast Back to School

Supply Drive

Our 10th Annual event was a huge success! Thank you to everyone that donated funds, supplies and their time to help us pack more than 1,700 backpacks! We could not do this without the amazing efforts of our community.

THANK YOU!

If you are in need of supplies, please visit our Contact Us page to see who from your school district you can contact to get needed supplies.

 
 

For our 11th Annual Story County School Supply Drive, our goal is to collect enough supplies to help more than 1,700 students in Story Count school districts! We will partner again with the National Night Out/ Hope in Christ Back 2 School Celebration to supply backpacks to the students they have helped in the past, so that they can work to provide Athletic shoes for families in need at their event in August. With the increased number of students we are hoping to help for the 2025-26 school year, we are working to collect $25,000 to support our Story County families!

Did you know that on average, families spend over $100 per child to purchase necessary school supplies? For many families this is just not possible on limited budgets. Story County Blast Back to School Event aims to relieve the burden of back to school expenses for local families of K–12 students.

The Blast Back to School Event has been helping our Story County families since 2015. The BBTS event collects supplies and backpacks throughout the spring and summer, packs the backpacks with the supplies, and then the participating schools distribute the backpacks to any student that registers for the event.

There is NO FEE to the schools or students! The whole event is done through donations from our community businesses and individuals, and community volunteers.

 
 

Thank you to United Way of Story County for being our Fiscal Agent Partner in our mission to provide needed school supplies to our Story County students each year!

 

Visit us in May 2025 for Dates and Times for our 11th Annual Blast Back to School Event!

Ways you can donate to our program

Monetary Donations

  • You can donate by sending a check to:

United Way of Story County

c/o Blast Back to School Supply Program

315 Clark Ave.

Ames, IA 50010

  • You can also donate by going to the United Way’s donate website and make a donation there. Please specify “Blast Back to School" where is asks for “Association with a special project”, there is a space to type in a custom program where it says “If other, please specify.”

Supply Donations

Drop off box locations

  • Come back in May 2025 for information on Donation Drop off box locations

If you have any questions, you can contact us at blastbacktoschool@gmail.com. Thank you!

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Event Volunteers

You can sign up to help out the BBTS program at the link below!

Volunteer Opportunities:

  • Pack backpacks on our Packing Event Day August

  • Check back periodically for additional volunteer opportunities with BBTS.

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Our planning committee

  • Shane Arp - Collins-Maxwell School District

  • Jerri Baumeister - Community Volunteer

  • Erin Denker - Ballard Community School District

  • Brittany Dueker - City of Nevada Library

  • Anna Fagervik - Ames Community School District

  • Amber Franzeen - Ames Community School District

  • Lori Fricke - Collins-Maxwell School District

  • Kate Hanson - Community Volunteer

  • Jodi Heeren - Nevada Community School District

  • Becky Lundy - Boys and Girls Club of Story County

  • Anneke Mundel - United Way of Story County

  • Jenn Peterson - BecomeMore Group and Cornerstone Church

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