The Mid-Prairie School District has been a secret Santa to over 200 healthcare workers this holiday season with their “Fill the Bus” program.

District Transportation Director Teresa Hartley says the campaign took donations of gift cards, flowers, plants, snack items, coffee cups, gift bags, socks and other items to say “thank you” to those on the frontlines in the battle against COVID-19, “This year with the pandemic we knew that healthcare workers were being stretched so thin and having to work, being away from their families all the time. Just giving (them) that little bit of something brings joy to them and that’s what we’re looking for.”

Hartley says gifts from their first-ever “Fill the Bus” are going to healthcare workers associated with families in the school district, but it could expand down the road. She says the response is a credit to the Mid-Prairie community, “We thought we’d give each one (healthcare worker) a gift card and we were 37 gift cards short. I put an email out and within probably 30 seconds of me sending that email out, I had somebody contact me and say ‘I want to give you all 37.’ That’s just how amazing this community has been through this whole thing.”

Hartley says even people from outside the district contributed to filling the bus.  She says they’ll likely do it again with the possibility of benefitting different groups in the future.