BY BRANDY TEMPLETON

The annual “Back 2 School Bash” brought hundreds of families to Statesville High School on Saturday.

Students in grades K-12 were able to start their school year right thanks to the generosity of multiple community sponsors.

The drive- thru event offered community resources, school supplies, backpacks, food, shoes, and sports physicals.

Alicia Baxter was grateful for the assistance.

She brought Sammi who will be an eighth-grader at West Iredell Middle.

“It helps because I don’t have a lot of money, and I get bad anxiety when I have to go to stores,” Baxter said.

Emily Watts, a volunteer with Bethel UMC, has been helping the families since 2015. Her church and others partner with area businesses to collect school shoes.

This year 100 volunteers helped distribute shoes and prayed with the families.

Watts helps manage them all.

Typically, Watts spends thousands on shoes, but this year was different.

“This year we were 100 percent funded with shoes,” she said. “We had enough donated for 1,300, and we were just lacking a couple hundred due to sizes.”

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