Free school supplies and dinner at Nome's Back-to-School Bash

Nome families walked out of the Nome Recreation Center gym on Aug. 26 with free backpacks, pencils, glue sticks, folders and a choice of water bottle — plus a pizza dinner they didn't have to cook on a school night.

Kawerak Wellness handed out the supplies at its Back-to-School Bash, alongside the Kawerak Child Advocacy Center, Norton Sound Health Corporation's behavioral health services, the Nome Community Center and others. Beyond the supplies, there was plenty to do: kids strung beads onto backpack zipper fobs, decorated berry-picking buckets ahead of blackberry season, and raced scooters and laundry baskets in a new game called Hungry Hungry Human Hippos. The Boys and Girls Club signed up new members, and one station offered ideas for balanced lunches.

The free supplies land on a real household expense — outfitting one kid with the required notebooks, backpack and specialized writing utensils can run more than $100. And Nome families are shouldering those costs in a tight year: the city cut its school district contribution by about $500,000, a reduction tied to layoffs and larger classes, on top of a cost of living that squeezes budgets year-round. As Sen. Lyman Hoffman recently reminded the Legislature, for a family in a hub community like Nome, "you go to the store and a gallon of milk costs $10."