Fort Myers church to give away school supplies, bikes, more on Saturday

Mount Hermon Church plans to help parents with expensive back-to-school shopping by handing out backpacks and giving away bikes, gift cards and groceries at its Community Fun Day on Saturday.

The annual event, being held from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2856 Douglas St., is for parents and students ahead of the upcoming school year. With many families struggling to make ends meet, the church wants to take away some of that back-to-school stress.

This is the first Community Fun Day the church has had since the start of the pandemic. Typically, around 1,500 people show up. Pastor William Glover says his church wants to help with some of the financial burdens parents feel at the beginning of every school year.

“It has multiple components to it: There is a nutrition and wellness seminar, where folks will be learning how to prepare healthy, nutritious meals,” Glover said. “We will have a food distribution where parents and community members will be able to drive by and pick up 30 pounds of groceries, just to help out with the grocery bills.”

Glover says it’s an event the whole family can enjoy. In addition to the food distribution, volunteers will be passing out bookbags filled with school supplies to students and giving away bikes. Kids can even get haircuts and physicals just in time for Aug. 10, and parents will even have the chance to win prizes.

“There will be giveaways associated with that for adults, ranging from small appliances to gift cards [for] grocery stores, and things of that nature,” Glover said. “There’s going to be food for everyone, entertainment for everyone, the bike giveaway for the children, the bookbag giveaway for the children. And then, at 1 p.m., we’re concluding with the food distribution. So, we want to just encourage the entire community to come out.”