On Thursday, August 26 from 3 to 6 p.m., VIP will be hosting its annual Back to School Day and giving children whose families are struggling to get by a brand new backpack filled with the supplies they need to start the new school year off right.

“Look, miss. See this tag? That means it’s new and no one else ever used this before. Isn’t that cool?”

“These are the good pencils! Not the kind that break all the time.”

Last year’s event was an amazing success. With your help, we gave away 175 fully loaded, brand new back packs to children from kindergarten to high school! It was a great day where enthusiastic volunteers helped wide-eyed kids pick out the bag they wanted. For some it was the first new backpack they had ever been given. Later in the Education Center, kids were trading folders and comparing rulers, but they all had smiles and were excited about the school year ahead.

This year VIP would like to create twice as many smiles. Our goal is to give away over 300 backpacks to clients! And to do this we are going to need your help:

• Print out a flyer about the event and share it with your friends, church, co-workers, neighbors, gym. Start a collection box. We can pick it up once you’re finished.
• If you know a store that might want to donate backpacks and supplies, talk to them about VIP or let us know and we will make the call.
• Make a financial contribution to VIP and we will buy the bags.
• Purchase an extra set (or two) of the same supplies you buy for your children and send them to VIP.
• Shop VIP’s Wish List at Target.com. We will keep the list updated with everything we know the kids need and you can purchase them online and have them shipped right to the office.

Supply List

VIP has several hundred children and teens in ongoing services so we need your help making sure we have enough supplies for everyone. We will need:

Backpacks for 300 children, ages 5-18, boys and girls!

Pencils, Pens, Highlighters, Erasers, Markers

Crayons and Colored Pencils

Rulers, Child Safety Scissors, Glue Sticks, Pencil Sharpeners

Lined Paper and Graph Paper

3-ring notebooks, spiral notebooks/composition books/journals

Pocket Calendars/organizers

Calculators