Winner Update: PEP Backpack Program

What have we done since walking out of here with this gigantic check with my tears on it? We have not had any students as of yet since we got that check. We got that right at the end of the school year, right at the beginning of the summer. So what it has allowed us to do is kind of slow our roll just a little bit. Not dive right in, start spending money. We are planning what we are doing with that money. It’s going to allow us to start out our school year, we think, with the backpack program alone, feeding those kids on the nights and weekends, we think we’re going to start out around 730, 740 kids at the beginning of the school year in Putnam County schools that we’re sending home backpacks with every week.

We anticipate that that will just grow, and grow, and grow throughout the year. We know that that happens as more kids are identified, as our school teachers figure out, “Wait a minute, maybe this home isn’t quite what I thought it was,” as they see the child’s reaction. Thanks to you’re generosity, we have a new homeless coordinator with the school system this year. So this coordinator is coming into a new role, going to have to learn the ropes as she goes, and really kind of figure things out. This gives her the ability to come in and be able to focus on the kids at first and know that there’s support there, that the backbone is already there to be able to handle whatever essential needs come up.

Our kids thank you. I can’t say it enough. Thank you so much.