Fill the Bus aimed to fill a Minot Public School bus with donated school supplies. The event was held Wednesday at Corbett Field and was sponsored by the Minot Sunrise Rotary Club in collaboration with the Salvation Army.

The Minot Sunrise Rotary Club was responsible for gathering the supplies, doing outreach and marketing, and volunteering throughout the month to organize the event by collaborating with various community partners.

Minot Sunrise Rotary is service club made up of professionals who enjoy getting together and volunteering in the community, said club president Krystal Stober.

“We try to make it fun. We do some fun things and we do a lot of volunteering and we try to make the volunteering fun as well, such as an event like this,” Stober said.

Audin Rhodes/MDN Local tattoo artist Maggie De La Torre paints children’s faces during Fill the Bus, a school supplies donation drive that happened Wednesday. Jazmyne Davis is having a unicorn design painted on her face while her mother, Jocelyn, and brother, Jaden, look on.

Prior to the event, Sunrise Rotary dropped off totes at various locations and businesses throughout Minot and people dropped donated items into the totes. The club then collected the donation-filled totes a few weeks later.

All of the supplies gathered at Fill the Bus will be distributed to interested families by the Salvation Army this Friday, Aug. 16, at the Salvation Army Church and Food Pantry at 315 Western Ave. SW, Minot. Pick up times are from 9-11 a.m. and 2-6 p.m. Families can preregister online or call Minot’s Salvation Army directly.

The Minot Sunrise Rotary Club has been partnering with the Salvation Army for Fill the Bus for years.

“We’ve been around for decades and we’re entering our third decade of doing Fill the Bus,” Stober said. “We’re trying to spread the awareness more, not only to get the donations but for people who are in need of receiving the supplies as well.”

Stober estimated around 220 families were served last year with the supplies donated to Fill the Bus.

“They had supplies they could use throughout the year. So the supplies aren’t just for before school starts. It’s throughout the whole year,” she said.

Stober said the monetary donations the Sunrise Rotary Club receives are extremely valuable in helping the nonprofit organization purchase more overlooked items, such as scientific calculators, trapper keepers and three ring binders and even headphones.

“Those higher ticket items are expensive these days and no one wants to only bring one or two items. They want to bring a bag full of things and so we just don’t get a lot of those other items donated,” Stober said.

Typically donated school essentials include items such as crayons, pencils, markers, notebooks, scissors, glue, pens, erasers, tissues and rulers.

An independent energy company with an office in Minot donated 300 backpacks to Fill the Bus this year.

“That was a huge asset,” Stober said.

Stober said there were also monetary donations received from the Lions Club and Noon Rotary Club.

Some Minot businesses even opted to donate their services and time for Fill the Bus in addition to monetary and item donations. The face painting booth, lunch and free ice cream were sponsored by local companies.