GEORGETOWN, Maine — Tristan Beveridge skipped across highly buffed floors of the tiny Georgetown Central School gym late Wednesday morning to greet Principal Matt Carlson after a long summer.
“What’s up, bud?” Carlson asked, greeting the boy with a high-five. “How ya doing? How was your trip?”
“Great. I want to show you my pictures,” Beveridge replied, referring to his family’s safari in Tanzania.
By 11:15 a.m., the gym was full of children filling brand-new backpacks with crayons and notebooks, trying on shoes and boots and — in the hallway — getting a back-to-school haircut.
Addison White, who at age 4 will begin prekindergarten this week, tried on size 13 and size 1 floral-patterned Bogs before settling on a purple pair and heading for the crayon table.
This year marked the first time Georgetown Central School — part of AOS 98 in the Boothbay region — joined the school system’s back-to-school program, Set for Success, which provides backpacks, school supplies, vision screening and other necessities for its prekindergarten to eighth-grade students.
No taxpayer dollars fund the program, according to AOS 98 Superintendent Eileen King. It’s paid for entirely through donations from individuals, businesses and organizations.
With one national study showing that parents pay an average of $1,239 on school supplies and related expenses in 2015 — up 7.6 percent from last year — the Set for Success program offers much-needed help to parents and kids.
“This is a big, big help,” said Addison’s mother, Tracie Overlook. “I’ve spent a mint on clothes already. They didn’t have this when I went here, that’s for sure.”
Fifth-grader Tony Brown filled his backpack according to the “shopping list” provided by his teacher, then stopped to chat with Carlson.
“Go check out those shoes, Tony,” the principal said, pointing to a table overflowing with shoe boxes. “See if you can get a pair of Bogs. You’re going to need them this winter.”
Volunteer Sue Burge began the program four years ago, “trying to help the kids go back to school on a level playing field. Some families have no problem buying kids supplies, but some families do struggle more than others,” King said Wednesday as she handed out the last purple backpack to a young girl.
The rest of the school’s 74 students would have to choose among teal, red or two shades of blue L.L. Bean backpacks, purchased brand-new at cost with funds from a variety of individuals and community organizations including the Georgetown Working League, the Georgetown Community Center and the nonprofit Georgetown Island Education Foundation.
Set for Success has evolved over the past few years. On Aug. 16, the back-to-school event for the rest of the district took place at the Boothbay Region YMCA in Boothbay Harbor, and offered dental and vision screenings, free haircuts, shoes, boots and new or gently used clothing. This year they handed out about 375 backpacks, according to King, with the remainder of the elementary and middle-school students set to pick up their packs and supplies when they arrive Tuesday to begin the school year.
“The goal is to get to them while they’re young and encourage the importance of education and equip them to be ‘set for success,’” Burge said Friday. “We can’t do the teaching — that’s up to the professionals — but we can begin to create some excitement for their school year.”
“For the kids who might [otherwise] not have come prepared, it reduces the anxiety, the ‘I don’t have what I need’ feeling that you’re not ready,” King said. “I know our students feel incredibly supported by their communities.”
Burge said many school districts in the South, particularly in poorer areas, hold similar events, frequently church-sponsored, and some even hold carnivals at which students win pencils and crayons by playing games of chance. That’s the spirit behind the effort, according to King.
“Every single child comes to school equally prepared to succeed,” she said. “That’s incredibly important. We want our kids to be successful, and we want to have celebration of the beginning of school.”
The nonprofit Boothbay Region Community Resource Council organizes the program, as well as others that provide food, clothing, fuel and other resources for people in need.
Fundraising typically begins in July, when churches on the peninsula donate their collections to the fund and accept donations of school supplies, according to Burge.
This year’s program, including Georgetown, cost about $8,000, King said.
Organizers decided to hold a separate back-to-school program for Georgetown students because the Boothbay YMCA is a 45-minute drive, up one peninsula and down another, to Boothbay. Carlson said planning for Wednesday’s event in Georgetown began in March, and he purchased the first supplies in July, when Wal-Mart sold crayons for 50 cents a box. Big Al’s in Wiscasset also offered supplies at a discount, and Lamey Wellehan provided dozens of new and gently used shoes and boots.
On Wednesday, Abby Kelley, a hair stylist at Starz salon in Brunswick, trimmed second-grader Sophia Moore’s shoulder-length bob — but left enough for a ponytail. Kelley and her husband, a fisherman, grew up in Georgetown and, like their daughters, Ava and Laura, attended Georgetown Central School.
Meanwhile, ophthalmologist Dr. Kathryn Beveridge — Tristan’s mother — offered vision screening for students.
Later, students, their parents and grandparents ate hot dogs and watermelon for lunch before heading home for the last few days of summer vacation before students return to begin a new academic year Tuesday.
Carlson said he doesn’t think any other districts in the state offer such a program, and neither the Maine Department of Education nor the Maine School Management Association tracks them, representatives of those organizations said.
Elizabeth Sky-McIlvain, a retired teacher and now a member of GIEF, said the need is there — often hidden in unexpected places.
Sky-McIlvain taught for 34 years, including seven years at Freeport Middle School. “You think of Freeport as a wealthy community but it’s not,” she said. “I worked with every seventh- and eighth-grade student and some of the students are very needy.”
King said she’d love to see similar programs throughout Maine.
“But it has to start somewhere,” she said. “I’m pretty proud that it started here.”