SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA–Operation Homefront – Southern California announces its annual Back-to-School Brigade program to collect new school supplies for the children in military families.
The Southern California Chapter hopes to donate over 1,800 backpacks throughout Southern California, to include, San Diego, Oceanside, China Lake, Lemoore, Barstow, Vandenberg and Ventura. Nationally, Operation Homefront hopes to distribute more than 22,500 backpacks filled with school supplies this year. Items needed for donation include: backpacks, spiral notebooks, notebook paper, 3 ring binders, pens, pencils, markers, glue sticks, crayons, rulers, colored pencils, calculators, erasers, etc.
This program helps to off-set the cost of sending these students from military families back to school, especially those experiencing financial hardships or repetitive deployments. The 2009 program resulted in more than $1.2 million in education supply savings to military families with more than 19,000 backpacks distributed nationally.
“School supplies are important—and expensive for families, especially in these tough economic times,” says Jim Knotts, Chief Executive Officer, Operation Homefront. “With a 191% increase last year in requests for food assistance, we know our military families are struggling to meet the most basic of needs. Without donations from the community, military families are forced to spend hundreds of dollars to provide their children with basic items needed for a quality education. These school supplies make a huge difference.”
To donate school supplies to student in a military family, call (858) 695-6810 or socal@operationhomefront.net. If you are interested in contributing to the Back-to-School Brigade program, but short on time to shop for items to donate, you may sponsor a child’s backpack for $35.00 by visiting www.operationhomefront.net/socal/donate.aspx and click on the “Donate Now!” button. Specify “Back-to-School Brigade” in the comments.
