Annual Pack A Back Campaign to Serve 3,300 Children in Santa Clara County
San Jose, CA – July 26, 2019. Sacred Heart Community Service kicked off our 2019 Pack A Back Education Program on July 1st, inviting families in our community to register online for backpack appointments. We are excited to announce that all of our appointments have been filled. On Friday, August 9th, 3,300 students and their parents will come to Sacred Heart, during their appointment times, to select backpacks and take home brand new school supplies.
Sacred Heart’s Pack A Back program is one way that families manage the high cost of living in Silicon Valley. According to the Huntington Bank’s 2019 Backpack Index, parents spend over $1,000 on school supplies and fees per child. These calculations take into account the costs that families must spend on technology so that their students can complete their assignments, a growing requirement in many schools. Through our program, families save an average of $400 that they can allocate towards crucial expenses, like the cost of rent.
Recent studies show that teachers in the US spend an average of $500 a year on school supplies for their classroom. At Sacred Heart, we value the teachers in our community and all the hard work they do to prepare the next generation of leaders. Therefore, we are adding a Teacher’s Corner to our school supply wish list this year. The week after Pack A Back, we will distribute kits to 500 teacher’s in surrounding schools; each kit will contain items like glue sticks and post-its. Our goal is to help reduce these expenses for teachers in Silicon Valley, where wages are not keeping up with the rising cost of housing.
Sacred Heart’s Director of Self Sufficiency, Roberto Gil, shared that, “our kits are one way to show that our community cares about our teachers and that we are prepared to help them in any way we can. Ultimately, we must all play a role in helping the next generation achieve success. Our teachers are not solely responsible for our students’ education.”
It takes the ongoing support of the community to make Pack A Back happen. The agency currently has
1,054 backpacks on site; we still need 2,246 to meet our goal. We are also short on items like earbuds, USBs, and scientific calculators. If you would like to help Sacred Heart meet our goals, please consider making an in-kind donation at our agency’s Donation Station, located at 1st and Alma Street in San José. We are open Monday through Friday, from 8:00AM to 5:00PM. www.sacredheartcs.org/pab.
WHAT: Sacred Heart Community Service’s Annual Pack A Back Education Campaign
WHERE: 1381 South First Street, San Jose, CA 95110
WHEN: Monday, July 29th at 8:00AM to 11:00AM and after 1:00PM (Staff will be onsite for interviews regarding how to get involved with the Pack A Back Campaign. Backpack distribution is Friday, August 9th