Backpack drive provides school supplies to students

Backpack drive provides school supplies to students
Donations help Family & Children’s Service fill 600 backpacks
BY KENNY WALTER Staff Writer

Backpacks are ready to be filled with back-to-school supplies by volunteers for the Long Branch-based nonprofit Family and Children’s Service, which distributed more than 600 backpacks to local elementary school children throughout Monmouth County. Backpacks are ready to be filled with back-to-school supplies by volunteers for the Long Branch-based nonprofit Family and Children’s Service, which distributed more than 600 backpacks to local elementary school children throughout Monmouth County. LONG BRANCH — While not every student in Monmouth County arrived prepared for the first day of school, many went home that way thanks to a local nonprofit.

Long Branch-based Family & Children’s Service raised funds and donations to provide more than 600 backpacks filled with school supplies to students at 11 different elementary schools across the county.

Samantha White, Family & Children’s Service manager of volunteer services, explained what the backpacks contain.

“Each backpack we provide [has] notebook, folders, pencil cases filled with pens, pencils, glue sticks, scissors, erasers, rulers,” she said. “We kind of put everything in.”

The backpacks were distributed to students at elementary schools in West Long Branch, Red Bank, Keyport, Middletown, Keansburg, Highlands, Freehold, Bradley Beach and three different schools in Asbury Park.

White explained why each of the schools was selected as a beneficiary of the Reading Buddies Backpack Project.

“They are part of our Reading Buddies program, which is a yearlong program where we have senior volunteers go into schools in Monmouth County and read to the students, usually kindergarten, first or second grade, for an hour a week,” she said. “Those are schools that are part of that program, and that’s how we decide to give the backpacks out.”

The group started collecting backpacks and supplies in June, and White explained where the donations came from.

“We start in June, July and August collecting supplies, and we fill the backpacks during one week in August,” she said.

A young student totes a backpack filled with donated school supplies. A young student totes a backpack filled with donated school supplies. “A lot come from the businesses that will do drives for us, and a lot of individuals will bring in backpacks and supplies. Some people do make monetary donations, and then we will go out and purchase the supplies and backpacks,” she added.

The FCS estimated that nearly $12,000 worth of supplies were donated during the summer months, and some of the business partners include: Staples, Panera Bread, Old Navy, New Jersey Natural Gas, Wells Fargo, Brookdale Community College, Jersey Shore Woman’s Club, Women’s Club of Colts Neck, United Way of Monmouth County, Red Bank Rotary Foundation, Wayside United Methodist Church, All Saints’ Memorial Church, St. Anselm’s Church, and employees of Whole Foods and the Banana Republic Factory Store.

The agency praised volunteers who helped organize the supplies.

“Also vital to the program’s success are the volunteers from the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program and area schools, who for several days in August sorted through hundreds of new notebooks, scissors, paper, pencils and pens piled in the agency’s small conference room, insuring that each of the 600 backpacks received adequate and equal amounts of school supplies,” a release stated.

White said this drive was the third she has been involved with and the total number of backpacks has increased from 250 her first year to 500 her second year and 600 in 2010.

She also said the biggest challenge in organizing the drive is to make sure they have enough supplies to go around.

“This year we had a lot more people participate, and I guess our greatest challenge is you just want to make sure you get enough for all of the kids,” White said. “The need is greater than 600, so every year we are trying to add more to the total that we can give out.

“At the end of the year, we ask the principals how many they may need based on their school population,” she added. “We [generally] can’t give as many as they need, but we try.”

White said that Long Branch will be a part of the Reading Buddies program this year and will be a part of the backpack drive next year.

“Long Branch is part of our Reading Buddies schools; we are adding them for the first time in October,” she said.

“They didn’t get backpacks because we really haven’t started the program with them yet,” White added. “Next year they will be added to the schools that get backpacks.”

White said one of the reasons the drive has become so popular is that a lot of people start to remember what their first day of school was like.

“It is a great program and a lot of people get behind it,” she said. “I think everybody remembers going to school on the first day and wanting to have a great first day.

“I think that is why so many people are willing to participate and help us,” she added.

But with increased participation, White said, they are also seeing an increase in the need for the backpacks and supplies.

“The lists that we get from the schools are getting a little more detailed about the supplies that the kids need,” she said.

“I think there is a greater need. Schools that before weren’t asking for them are starting to ask for them now.”

The FCS has been a fixture in Long Branch since 1909 and according to the website, the nonprofit has been “dedicated to creating programs and opportunities that make life a little easier for many struggling through tough times and in need of help and guidance.”

For more information, call 732-222- 9111 or visit the website at www.fcsmonmouth. org.

Contact Kenny Walter at

kwalter@gmnews.com.