TORRINGTON – A back-to-school drive for Goshen County School District families brought in an estimated $700 from Peak Wellness Center this week.

The donations, largely from Peak employees in Torrington and Cheyenne, were intended to help families in the wake of the tunnel collapse along the Fort Laramie irrigation canal.

Regional Clinic Director Maggie Loghry said that donations consisted of $625 in WalMart gift cards, with the remainder being in-kind donations of notebooks, markers, paper and other school supplies.

“There were several big benefactors that wrote checks for $100 and then lots of little ones,” she said.

Peak Wellness announced the drive on Aug. 6 and it ran for just over two weeks. Loghry dropped off the supplies at the central administration building on Aug. 26, telling superintendent Ryan Kramer, “I figure you and your staff will know who’s in greatest need.”

Kramer agreed, saying that the district’s secretaries have informally kept track of which families would benefit the most from donations. He added that even with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recent announcement that crop insurance would cover losses, he expected there to be a financial need.

“What I’ve understood from people that are in the ag business is that what crop insurance allows is for those farmers to at least go another year without having to completely start over,” he said. “So people still are going experience significant loss from it and financially going to have to manage.”

For any family that the school district does not contact directly, Kramer encouraged them to speak with central administration if they would like to claim any of the donations - even if the tunnel collapse did not affect them directly.

“If we ever need any assistance for any families, please reach out to me and we want to provide that as community members,” he said. “There is availability not only for this situation but other economic hardships that other families might face.”