The Wisconsin Lions Clubs will be participating in a statewide Stuff the Bus campaign on Saturday, Aug. 9. The project is much like a food drive, but instead of collecting food, supplies for area schools will be gathered and delivered to the schools before the start of the upcoming school year.
    Local clubs are getting involved with this project including Darlington and Shullsburg. There are several drop-off points at area locations where supplies can be donated. The supplies will then be gathered and delivered to the local schools. All donations will stay local in order to benefit students from the area.
    There is a generic list of school supplies that can be found on the Wisconsin Lions Club website at http://wislions.org/stuff-the-bus/. Most local schools also have their own list of class supplies located on their websites.
    In Shullsburg, bins have been set up at Turpin’s Hometown Grocery, Shullsburg Community Bank and Claire Bank and items can be dropped off at those locations right now up until Monday, Aug. 11.
    The Shullsburg Lions will also be at the school on Aug. 9 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. collecting supplies.
    And if anyone wants to donate anything before school starts, but misses the Stuff the Bus drive dates, they can contact Shullsburg Lions member Emmett Reilly.
    “It seems that there’s always some type of supplies that are needed in classrooms once school starts,” said Reilly. 
    The Darlington Lions Club is also planning at this point to participate in the Stuff the Bus drive again this year, as last year’s was a great success, according to club president, Rob Stoflet. 

“We were able to set up our donation drop off box in the World of Variety store an received a lot of great school supplies thanks to the generous support from our community and some extra donations from the Cover Girls of the Grace Lutheran Church,” said Stoflet.

The supplies collected last year in Darlington were then evenly divided between the Darlington Schools.
The Darlington Lions will be setting up their drop box at World of Variety on Friday, Aug. 1, and it will be available throughout the month of August for people to drop off school supplies.

Stoflet said the Lions are trying to narrow down the list of needed supplies to what the schools need the most of.
Darlington Elementary/ Middle School has said they are most in need of crayons, folders, notebooks, pencil boxes, pencils, washable markers, back packs, pens, kleenex, colored pencils, hand sanitizers, high-lighters, compasses, protractors, post-it notes and book covers.

A list of generic school supply items that are typically needed will also be posted on the drop box at World of Variety.