Third Grade Backpack Project

 

One Saturday in early August the Rotary Club of Goleta Noontime members and their families converge on the Goleta Union School District boardroom. The volunteers will spend the next two hours packing 400 backpacks with all the school essentials. An additional 200 sets of school essentials are supplied for the students. This ensures the entire third grade student class will start the year with the necessary school supplies.  Even in an affluent region of Santa Barbara with UCSB as the backdrop, the backpacks and school supplies often fill a critical gap in the young students’ academic year.  Without this yearly comment by Rotary club to partner with the schools and parents many of the students may not attend school, falling further behind. The backpack project helps many family members who are making sufficient sacrifices to enable their children to attend school for the opportunity they never had.  Feedback from the school district on the project is the parents are elated. Yes, because Rotarians are People of Action but mostly because the Rotary Club of Goleta Noontime took the time to see a value in their children.