Operation Backpack® is our initiative to stand in the gap for our regions most vulnerable children. Your donations help us provide backpacks, school supplies and funding for academic enrichment to more than 2,000 homeless and underprivileged children in Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Together, we can help ensure these children achieve success despite their circumstances.

This Year We Need to Rethink Operation Backpack® in Light of the COVID-19 Crisis

Ordinarily we rely on the public mainly companies to organize drives that result in at least 2,000 full backpacks. For the other items needed, we raise funds to purchase school supplies, secure in-kind product donations and fill backpacks from scratch with the help of volunteers in August.

This year, with many employees working remotely and social distancing efforts in place, we simply cannot bank on things returning to normal in time to conduct Operation Backpack® in the usual way. Many children are experiencing distance-learning now more than ever and need the appropriate access to computers, WiFi, and other technology to receive an education. Public drives and volunteers at sort week are just not enough to get the backpacks and supplies in children hands before school begins which is imperative.

As we adjust to this reality, we are having to make decisions and commitments to school supply vendors now, months earlier than in the past. So, for this year, we must do things very differently. As a community service with no government funding, your support is vital, and urgently needed now.