Community Corner
Back to School Backpacks
JFCS partners with YPG and BeyondMe to provide school supplies to kids in need
Photos: 1) JFCS staff picks up backpacks for distribution to their Healthy Families’ program participants. 2) JFCS Board Chair Dean Miller (center) and his wife Patty Miller (left) join other JFCS and BeyondMe volunteers to help fill backpacks with school supplies at Tiny Hands Foundation’s Backpack Brigade at Boys & Girls Club Sarasota. 3) A local family picks up their filled backpacks at JFCS of the Suncoast, which served as one of the distribution centers.
Helping families in need get their children ready for school, JFCS of the Suncoast, in partnership with Sarasota Young Professionals Group (YPG) and the newly formed BeyondMe philanthropic initiative, recently joined forces at Boys & Girls Club to fill more than 1,500 backpacks with school supplies. The event also served as the first coordinated effort to engage BeyondMe volunteers with a way to give back.
The backpack supplies, ranging from pens and pencils to erasers, notebooks, sharpeners, safety scissors, tissues, protractors and rulers, scientific calculators and glue sticks, were sponsored through financial and in-kind donations from Dean and Patty Miller, as well as Tiny Hands Foundation and Hope 4 Communities.
Find out what's happening in Sarasotafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The backpacks were distributed to kindergarten through middle school children from Title I schools as well as local churches and social service organization programs in Sarasota and Manatee Counties, including JFCS’ Building Strong Families, Healthy Children Healthy Families, Healthy Children Healthy Fathers, Operation Military Assistance, Children’s Crisis, Counseling, STARS and Camp Mariposa programs.
About JFCS:
Find out what's happening in Sarasotafor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Founded in 1985, JFCS is a fully accredited, community-based social service, non-profit organization serving Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte, Collier, Lee and DeSoto counties in Florida, with the goal of empowering people to lead healthy, happy and sustainable lives. JFCS serves more than 5,700 individuals each year through counseling, prevention, intervention, outreach, case management, basic life necessities, financial aid and life skills education programs on a secular, non-denominational basis. Its seven key focal areas include Youth, Seniors, Cancer Support, Jewish Healing, Counseling, Veterans and Families. For more information, visit www.jfcs-cares.orgor call 941.366.2224.
