Volunteers Donate Their Time Stuffing Backpacks for Kids in Need
Pencils, pens, notebooks, backpacks, markers, crayons, lunch boxes and more! According to a 2018 survey conducted by the National Retail Federation, the average American family spends more than $120 on school supplies at the start of each school year, not including clothes and shoes. Many metro-area parents simply can’t afford the expense, especially when they are struggling to provide basic needs like food and a safe place to live for their families.
That’s why The Salvation Army 7 Can Help Kids Back to School Backpack Program is so important. Over the last 21 years this program has provided more than 200,000 backpacks to kids in need in the Omaha metro. And this year’s new nationwide “Stuff the Bus” collaboration with Walmart that took place on Saturday, August 3, has resulted in more donated school supplies than ever.
Over the last two weeks dozens of volunteers have streamed into the gymnasium at The Salvation Army’s Renaissance Village on Cuming Street to spend hours sorting through tens of thousands of individual items and then packing the school supplies assembly-line style into backpacks. Every volunteer is there for one reason: to help metro-area kids in need start their school year off right.
The Salvation Army is grateful for our volunteers. We couldn’t serve kids in our community without YOU – thank you!
If you are in need of a backpack and/or school supplies for your family, we will be distributing materials on August 9 and 10. Click HERE for Omaha distribution information, and click HERE for Council Bluffs distribution information.