Dear Donors and Friends,

Every year, families across the country struggle to provide their kids with the supplies they need to start the school year. Each year, the Unus Family Foundation sponsors a backpack drive for elementary school students in need. With your support, we were able to provide young learners with the tools they need to succeed.

Each backpack contained basic school supplies including paper, pencils, crayons, markers, notebooks, rulers, index cards and other supplies necessary to the educational success of young students. The backpacks were delivered to deserving children in Virginia and Arizona before the start of the school year.

While making a large purchase at an office supply store last year, two Foundation members were asked by a cashier about the number of supplies being purchased. The members discussed the goals of the Foundation and the need of local students. The cashier informed the members that as a child, she was a recipient of similar charitable drives and talked about how much efforts like this had meant to her.

During that same transaction, four additional employees of the store helped with the check-out process and packing of the materials, all the while discussing their personal experiences with the expense of school supplies and sharing stories of customers who had recently come into the store to purchase supplies for their children, only to express distress at the final bill. One mother of four told an employee that the cost of supplies would mean a serious cutback to the money she could spend on food for her family that month.

The delivery of the backpacks provided its own opportunity to meet and hear the stories of the recipients. We met a newly immigrated refugee family with two elementary school children. The parents shared the story of their escape from persecution. The backpacks, they said, would help their young family in an immeasurable way. They volunteered their own time to help deliver backpacks to others in need.

Projects like this one are not about dollars raised or even the backpacks themselves. They are about the relationships, the shared stories, and the opportunities that will bring us together, help us grow and contribute to our success as a community.

We hope that you, and your friends and family, will join us in donating to this backpack drive in hopes of making the lives of others a little easier, and our hearts a little bigger.