The great time to bring more food to school. Stuff the Bus is a Camas and Washougal school district event that helps bring food to the people who need it.

A lot of the teachers have a friendly competition between each other. Mr. Cory Marshall is one of those competitive teachers when it comes to Stuff the Bus. He gets competitive with stuff the bus because “it’s going to supply other people food and clothes for a huge chunk of the year.” This interaction with the community connects people with each other. Marshall says that students participate in Stuff the Bus because “a lot of them genuinely like what it’s about, a lot of them like an easy, simple, guided way of contributing to the community in ways that they may not know how to but they like doing. They want to be a part of some community thing.”

By contributing to Stuff the Bus, the food is covering “80 to 90 percent of their non-perishable goods for an entire year,” is what one of the people that organize Stuff the Bus said to Marshall.

The competition between teachers to bring in the most food is intense. The battle has been going on for a long time and teachers are ready to bring it their all. Mr. Alan Bohac’s biggest competition is “Mr. Marshall.” He brings the heat every year and has been in close second for quite a while. Maybe this year Marshall will be able to beat Bohac in the competition. Both teachers have different strategies on how to get students to participate in Stuff the Bus. One Taktick that Marshall has is to motivate students to participate in Stuff the Bus is to allow them to make suggestions on what they would like their reward to be. One year, Marshall let someone slap a pie in his face. What Bohac does is “try to get the word out early…give weekly challenges and goals…do push-ups for every item that comes in…remind them of this opportunity to help people in our own community.” There are a lot of different ways to get students to participate in Stuff the Bus.

The teacher that won Stuff the Bus last year is Bohac. His favorite part about Stuff the Bus is “helping those in need and coming together as a school to do it.” This cause helps so many people and by bringing one thing, everyone can change the life of another person. Stuff the Bus also “builds community in our own school and connects our school to the community” is one of the reasons why Stuff the Bus is so important according to Bohac. Having people care about this event, helps the people in the community and creates a connection between strangers.

Keep in mind that every item that is brought in is a life changed, so bring those extra cans of peanut butter or the emergency boxes of macaroni and cheese and make a change.