Columbus police collect nearly 600 pounds of school supplies for Stuff the Backpack

COLUMBUS (WCMH) — The countdown is on to back to school.

Throughout the summer with your help and support, NBC4 is stuffing backpacks for 25 school districts across Central Ohio.

On Thursday, the Columbus Division of Police had a little competition to see who could collect the most supplies.

The winners got bragging rights for the year on who could buy the most school supplies for NBC4’s Stuff the Backpack drive.

It was a huge competition but man, did the CPD’s Crime Lab Unit come in strong: Buying paper, binders and colored pencils for students’ first day of school.

Box after box, members of the Crime Lab Unit weighed-in boxes of back to school supplies.

The total weight of school supplies collected was 576 pounds.

“We are super supportive of our community and we like to give what we can,” said Amanda Wilberg.

During the month of July, the folks over at CPD’s Forensic Crime Lab split up into five teams to collect the supplies.

They all had one goal in mind and that is to give back to the kids, but you can say it did turn a little competitive.

“Everyday people would be bringing in stuff, adding more to their box and it was just growing more and more and eventually Team 5 got a second box, another box had to come in for another team,” said Wilberg.

Team 5 is taking home the bragging rights, weighing-in with 231 pounds.

Community outreach is what these men and women do when they are not analyzing evidence and collecting data for the city’s police department.

They call themselves the CPD unit behind the scenes but strive to build community and police relationships.