It’s that time of year. Summer is winding down and kids will soon be headed back to school. But for some families, getting ready for their kids to head back to class can be a struggle financially. There’s new shoes, clothes, and school supplies to buy and with the cost of everything – from gas to groceries – going up, it’s getting tougher to make ends meet.
As a result, demand for Pelham Cares’ Back to School Backpacks program has grown substantially, said Kimberly Green, an administrative assistant at the agency who is coordinating the program.
“It’s up 30 percent. We have 95 students registered for backpacks so far,” she said.
In 2023, the program helped some 60 kids return to school with a new backpack and enough school supplies to at least get them started.
The backpacks are tailored for boys and girls of all ages – kindergarten, elementary school and high school. There are even a couple of university students who are being helped this year, Green said.
“The little kids need, you know, crayons and fatter glue sticks and scissors and elementary kids need pencils, pens, paper, markers,” Green said. “The high school students need more, like binders and lots of paper and white-out. It's sort of tailored to those groups.”
The community has been generous with donating both supplies and backpacks, Green said as a donation of branded backpacks from a Niagara radio station was dropped off. The backpacks, she said, come in all shapes and sizes.
“There are smaller backpacks for little kids and then some that are bigger. We did get some donated that are really heavy duty.”
And it’s the people who donate to the program who are the reason the agency manages to help as many people as it can, Green said.
“We've been so happy with our donors, and we did get (financial help) from a couple of our bigger donors, so that really helps, too.”
Registrations are no longer being taken for the program and distribution of the backpacks has begun, Green said.
The rise in numbers needing help from the backpack program is in line with increased demand at Pelham Cares’ food bank. The most recent statistics available showed 496 “unique individuals” accessed the food bank last year. That was an increase of 69 percent over the previous year.
More information on services offered by Pelham Cares can be found at pelhamcares.org
