It’s almost back-to-school time and while tons of kids across Northern California will be returning to the classroom, many families are struggling with finding money needed to buy all the school supplies and clothing their children will need.
Luckily a number of nonprofits and organizations are doing what they can to help out! Here’s a look at what you can do to help prepare local kids to learn this school year.
Operation Backpack
Volunteers of America of Greater Sacramento & Northern Nevada has extended its annual Operation Backpack until August 3 – so far they have received 7,000 backpacks, but they need more to meet this year’s goal!
Since 2005, VOA Greater Sacramento has donated more than 11,000 backpacks to students in need. Click here to download a school supply list to shop for and drop-off location list. It’s that easy!
Sacramento Zoo School Supply Drive
Help kids in the community by bringing in a new, unwrapped school supply item to donate to the Back-to-School Supply Drive and receive $1 off your Zoo admission! Visit www.saczoo.org for more information.
Shop With a Cop School Supply Drive
Every month, police officers from the Roseville Police Department’s Shop With a Cop School Supply Drive team take a group of school-age Roseville kids shopping for clothes and other necessary items. Students are chosen based on good grades and effort in school, good behavior, and financial need.
From now until August 4, the Shop With a Cop program is holding a school supply drive for the following items: lined paper, pencils, pens, highlighter packs, 3-ring binders, report folders, backpacks, lunch boxes, reams of printer paper, Kleenex, hand sanitizer, sanitizer wipes (for example, Clorox wipes), dry erase pens, student-size white boards, glue sticks and pencil boxes.
Items can be dropped off in collection bins at the Roseville Sports Center, Maidu Library, the Roseville Civic Center, or the Roseville Police Department. Monetary donations are also appreciated. Please send checks made out to RPAL (Roseville Police Activities League), write “Shop with a Cop” on the memo, and drop it off at the Police Department, or mail it to the Roseville Police Department (attention: RPAL), 1051 Junction Blvd., Roseville, CA 95678.
Pack-A-Back 2012
To meet the unprecedented need in Silicon Valley, Sacred Heart Community Service plans to hold the largest back-to-school event in their history by handing out at least 2,300 backpacks filled with school supplies to low-income students.
You can help by making a financial contribution or shopping for backpacks and needed school supplies. Click here for more information.