Berkeley County School District is looking forward to having students return on Wednesday, Aug. 12.
To help families start the school year on the right foot, BCSD held its annual OneBerkeley Back to School Festival at the Moncks Corner Regional Recreation Complex on Saturday. VIEW PHOTOS.
A big feature of the festival, which has been held almost 10 years now, is the bookbag giveaway. The event started at 9 a.m. but families showed up as early as 7:30 to start a line that would end up almost completely wrapping around the parking lot as families waited for nearly 3,000 bookbags to be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
Boasting some new patterns this year, the bags were lightly packed with some basic back-to-school supplies, something that parents always say they appreciate about the event. Berkeley Middle/High parent April Whitehead was among some of the early arrivers in the bookbag line, prepared with an umbrella and a personal cooling fan to beat the heat while waiting for the festivities to kick off.
"It helps our family so much with all the school supplies and backpacks and everything," she said, adding she is very grateful for many of the services BCSD provides. "We've been here (in Moncks Corner) for five years -- we aren't going anywhere else...I'm beyond grateful, there's not really a word for it."
Berkeley High parent Micah Lee said his family enjoys the bookbag giveaway as well as the district's community partners who come out to participate in the festival. There were more than 20 tents set up to connect families to district and community resources, and each table gave away some additional school supplies plus some small prizes for the students.
"The kids event talked this morning about...'hey, I can't wait to go to this table and that table," Lee said. "It's quite a helpful thing -- it just gives us an extra boost toward getting the school year started."
In addition to the tents and the bookbags, students got to enjoy face painting and jump castles. BCSD's iTow truck came out for some hands-on robotics demonstrations. The Berkeley High Blue Brigade had a performance at the beginning of the festival. BCSD's Child Nutrition Services handed out pizza and chicken biscuits, and the Kona Ice and Travelin’ Tom’s Coffee trucks also came out to the campus.
BCSD Superintendent Dr. Anthony S. Dixon said he is looking forward to the upcoming school year. He thanked BCSD's community partners and volunteers for making this year's festival another big success.
"This is very important for us in Berkeley County School District because one of our missions is to make a positive difference," he said, adding, "What we know to be true is that students need a very good start to the school year. They need a smooth start to the school year. And this is a way that we can equitably provide that for thousands and thousands of students here in our district."