For most children, back-to-school means a trip to the mall to get new clothes, colorful backpacks and cool gadgets. There’s often the imagery of bright crayons, freshly-sharpened pencils, and all the polished novelty a new school year brings. Imagine though, for a moment, a child walking the halls without a backpack and without the essential tools for learning.
The American family spends a whopping average of around $700 on Back to School shopping, according to the National Retail Federation. A large portion of consumer’s paychecks go toward apparel, backpacks and accessories, followed by electronics.
In order to assist families in our community with the high cost of clothing and supplies, GRACE partnered with GCISD, The Education Foundation, and the Grapevine Chamber of Commerce Women’s Division for the eighth year serving over 1,200 elementary, middle school and high school students at the GCISD Back-To-School Fair this year!
Thanks to a generous donation by TriNet Group Inc., a Human Resources Benefits company, of 125 brand new backpacks, we were able to give out 111 backpacks filled with supplies at the fair. In total, we will most likely hand out over 300 filled backpacks by the time school is underway!
GRACE’s Back-To-School efforts do not end after the fair, as we continue to assist children throughout the year with school supplies if and when they need them. At the fair alone, we served 111 students from 61 households with back to school supplies. To date for the start of the 2019 school year, we have served 284 individual students with supplies for 144 households!
As far as clothing, we were able to assist 795 children including four to six outfits, shoes, and new socks and underwear for each! We are still counting how many we have helped outside of the fair.
Thank you to everyone who volunteered, donated, prayed and organized supply drives — your kindness changes the life of a child which in turn changes the world for the better! We wish success, determination and joy to all of the students during the 2019-2020 school year!
A Back-To-School or school supply drive is the perfect way for churches, social clubs and local business to collect much-needed items for children whose parents may not be able to afford the vast amount of school supplies needed each year. For more information, please contact Marcela Melendez at mmelendez@gracegrapevine.org.
