Somehow, again, late summer is creeping up. The humidity in St. Louis is high, baseball season is in full swing, and before we know it, school will be back in session.  Does thinking about new supplies conjure up nostalgic feelings of freshly sharpened no. 2 pencils, the smell of a brand new box of crayons, or the smooth feeling of fresh spiral notebooks? Or, does a list of necessary classroom supplies for a young student bring upon feelings of anxiety and stress about not being able to check off every item?

For our elementary, middle, and high school aged children in foster care, we strive to erase every stress about securing classroom supplies through our backpack program. Each July and August, our social workers fill backpacks with supplies tailored to each child’s supply list. In goes pencils, paper, notebooks, art supplies, folders, and Kleenex. These backpacks are then taken to each child’s foster home, which helps to ease the burden of school supplies for child and parent. For many of our foster and kinship (meaning the child is with an aunt, grandparent, or family member as opposed to a foster home), help with these supplies can be a huge blessing. Many families have more than one child (both foster and biological) in their home, and as every parent knows, checking off every school supply list item for just one little student can be costly, but with multiple, the costs add up.

The school supplies that we help our foster and kinship parents with come from generous donors and volunteers who help to make sure that every child in foster care starts the year off right. This year, we’re running short on a few items that our young students need for class, especially school supplies for our middle and high school students, like binders, calculators, and notebooks. If you would like to help our kids in foster care prepare for their upcoming year by donating school supplies, please fill out the form below. We thank you for your generosity!