Office Depot Foundation to Donate 400,000 New Sackpacks This Year
Every day, millions of kids carry their stuff to school in plastic grocery bags because they can’t afford a backpack. One innovative way to tackle this problem is to put free backpacks or sackpacks into the hands of children who need them the most. Suddenly, they’re just like other kids. Suddenly, they have hope.
During the past 11 years, the Office Depot Foundation has provided more than 2.5 million backpacks to deserving children in local communities across North America and as far away as China through its National Backpack Program. The Foundation will mark the 12th anniversary of the program this year by giving away approximately 400,000 colorful new sackpacks containing essential school supplies – the most it has ever donated in a single year. But while these numbers are very large, the sackpacks make an impact on a singular level ? one child at a time.
Every Office Depot store in the United States will receive 50 sackpacks to give to non-profit organizations and schools in the community. In addition, sackpacks will be donated through approximately 30 “Back-to-School Celebration” events in key Office Depot markets during the summer, as well as to a number of national non-profits serving children in the U.S. and, increasingly, around the world.
By the end of this year, Office Depot and the Office Depot Foundation will have donated more than 2.9 million backpacks and sackpacks to deserving children.
More information about the National Backpack Program can be found on the Office Depot Foundation’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/officedepotfoundation. For information on the Office Depot Foundation and its initiatives, go to www.officedepotfoundation.org/. You can also follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.twitter.com/officedepotfndn.
