‘Operation Backpack’ helps students in homeless and domestic violence shelters
For the third year in a row, FTF News will be participating in the Operation Backpack Campaign, an effort to donate school supplies to students in homeless and domestic violence shelters around New York City.This year, we would like to expand our efforts and have you consider helping out with this truly worthwhile cause.
Last year, Operation Backpack was able to put together 8,000 backpacks for students ranging from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. This year, we want to help them reach their goal of 14,000 backpacks by August 10. There are many ways that you can get involved in the program, either by donating school supplies, volunteering at the shelter, or making an online donation.
Operation Backpack is an outreach of Volunteers of America (VOA), a non-profit organization that manages thousands of human services programs around the country.
Sarah Hathaway, Vice President of FTF, speaks on our efforts supporting the campaign: “FTF began supporting VOA and the Operation Backpack campaign back in 2010 as education is a cause that we hold close to our hearts, and the outreach to area shelters was a way for us to give back to the community around us. Year-after-year it’s been great to see the entire FTF team get behind this project and we look forward to expanding our outreach this summer and plan to spread the word throughout the financial services community. We want to make more people aware of VOA and their work in community shelters and feel the Operation Backpack campaign is a great way to start by raising awareness amongst our clients and industry peers.”
Unfortunately, the majority of the students helped by Operation Backpack cannot afford school supplies, and this has many negative impacts on their education.
“It started about 10 years ago when we started seeing some of the kids in our own shelter going back to school without the supplies they needed,” says Kristin Kelly-Jangraw, corporate and community engagement manager at Operation Backpack, in describing how the campaign program began. “So, we started a drive in our office first among our staff to collect school supplies.” Now, Operation Backpack has expanded significantly, providing students with supplies at over 120 shelters in the NYC area.
Here are some details on how you can get involved:
1) You can donate a filled backpack by printing a supply label given to us by Volunteers of America (VOA) and then purchase everything on that supply list and put it into a backpack. There are different supply lists depending on the grade level.
2) If you can’t fill an entire backpack, then you can purchase any supplies listed on the attached forms or order supplies from their Amazon.com wish list here. (Items ordered from the Amazon wish list will be shipped directly to Volunteers of America.)
3) Or, you can donate through our virtual site here: www.operationbackpack-ftf.org
To learn more information about Operation Backpack, visit the website at: http://www.voa-gny.org/Get-Involved/Operation-Backpack
To find out how you can get involved or to schedule a pick-up for supplies you would like to donate please contact Sarah Hathaway. Sarah.hathaway@ftfnews.com or call her at (646) 395-6344.
Need a Reprint?
Leave a Reply