With the new school year comes the promise of a new academic year of learning, new friendships and new experiences. While this can be a very exciting time for children and parents alike, it can also be an expensive one.

Household budgets that have been stretched over the summer are now responsible for purchasing new clothing, backpacks and school supplies. For many of the clients who depend on us for help, this reality presents a great challenge.

For this reason we launched our Back to School Drive for 2015 to raise funds for new backpacks filled with school supplies – free of charge. With your help, we were able to distribute school bags filled with: pens, pencils, crayons, erasers, glue sticks, scissors, sharpeners, rulers, spiral and composition notebooks and folders.

A special thank you to our friends at Con Edison for donating items for our cause.

The only thing children should have to worry about in the new school year is making good grades! Thank you to everyone who donated and helped to get the word out and make our Back to School Drive a success!

Packing backpacks signifies the start of a new school year!	Thank You to everyone who donated to our school drive.
These "students" look ready to conquer homework and more!	Distributing the backpacks is always a highlight.