Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for your very generous donations of backpacks valued at $225 to the 28th annual Congregations for Kids’ Good Start Back to School project. Your help made it possible to provide students from low-income families in the Bellevue School District with backpacks and/or home-use school supplies. Some are from families no longer able to make ends meet; some are refugees fromed violence in Central America or war in Ukraine or domestic violence; some are unaccompanied minors or homeless. Specific district student requests for the 2023-24 school year were down to around 2000, a more normal number. We provided 1035 backpacks for students in K, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th and 11th. Since the district provided school supplies for classroom use for everyone this year, we no longer needed to provide kits of supplies for those in need. Instead, we provided school supplies to their Family Connections Centers for these students to take home. What is constant since our very first project is that we, with your help, are still helping the students who need it most.
Congregations for Kids is the only organization that works with the Bellevue School District to provide backpacks and home-use school supplies to these children throughout the district. Students in every school except one needed help this year. In six elementary schools, over 40 students were helped; in four middle schools, over 40; and in two high schools, over 40. Numbers of students in various elementary schools needing help ranged from 5 to 198. Since 1996, we have filled over 36,750 requests from the district.
Congregations for Kids, a non-profit interfaith organization, is a program arm of the Eastside Interfaith Social Concerns Council. For your tax-deductible information, our tax ID number is 94-3036001. Our 14-member steering committee consists of volunteers from seven congregations. Our website, www.congregations4kids.org, has updates and photos from this year’s project in mid-August. Please look – you’ll get an idea just how big this project is!
Through your generous gifts, you have helped make it possible for these students to have the backpacks and/or home-use school supplies they needed to have a good start back to school in September. Thank you for showing them that you care about them. On behalf of Congregations for Kids – and all the kids you are helping – thank you so very much!
Sincerely,
Nancy Jacobs
Chair, Congregations for Kids