The Village Strong Community Outreach Program held a hot dog sale on Wednesday to raise money for its annual Back to School Bash and to raise money to help a Picayune family that lost everything in a house fire in late June.

Village Strong planned to raise $1,000 through the sale of the hot dogs and drinks. Half of the proceeds will go towards funding the Back to School Bash, while the other half will be donated to the family of Teela Hayes and Arlando Bradford. Both, including they’re three children lost their home during a fire on June. 24.

The Back to School Bash is an event created by Village Strong Director Wanda Worley to assist low-income families by ensuring those children have school supplies. Worley says the parents and children benefit from the event.

“A lot of parents are working on overdrive just to get the bare minimum for their kids, so us being able to assist them helps them a lot financially. Then it helps our kids too because they’re going to school and now they have something and they’re not going to school with nothing and getting picked on,” said Worley.

Last year’s event provided 1,500 children with book bags, and this year Village Strong wants to double that number. This year’s Back to School Bash will be held on Monday, July 25, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Community of Christians Helping Youth (CCHY) building and adjacent field, locate at 120 Street A Suite C, Picayune.

Village Strong partnered with CCHY this year to provide activities like water slides, fun jump, tug of war and other games for the kids to play.

“So when the kids come they’re not just getting their bags and going home, we have something for them that they can actually do and it’s all completely free,” said Worley.

Food will be provided during the bash along with backpacks stuffed with various school supplies for student’s who will be attending grades pre-K through 12th.

Supplies in the backpack are expected to include, binders, folders, pencil boxes, composition books, crayons, construction paper, planners, graph paper for the older students, reading books and maybe a small bible in each bag.

“We’ll have girl book bags, boy book bags and unisex book bags. They’ll have all of your basic supplies. We’ll have them separated to where if they are in elementary school then this is where your book bags will be, if you’re in high school this is where you’ll get your book bags. Just so that way they we won’t have a senior walking away with a book bag of crayons and a pre-schooler has a book bag with graph paper.”

Left over book bags will be donated to the local schools in Pearl River County, including Poplarville, or they will be donated to any family who had the Back to School Bash event and needs one.

Worley said the highest demand for school supplies are for back backs and paper because that is what every child is going to need. Village Strong will accept any kind of school supply donations from the community. The community can donate supplies or school uniforms to Village Strong, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. at 214 N Curran Ave. They can also call Worley or contact her through Facebook to schedule any delivery or donation pick-ups.