School-age youngsters at North Chicago Baptist Church have a gift coming when they attend the church’s annual back-to-school party on Sunday. They will receive a backpack full of age-appropriate school supplies courtesy of United Way Lake County.
The Rev. Lee Zachary Maxey, the pastor, said the church has held its back-to-school party every year since 2011, giving families a fete with ice cream, a bouncy house and more. The Rosalind Franklin University Care Coach will be there to assist with back-to-school examinations.
Maxey said the backpacks and the supplies inside include things as basic as crayons and as modern as earbuds to help the students with their school-issued electronic devices for the 21st century.
“We’re sending our blessings to everybody, and we want the children to have a good school year,” Maxey said.
The backpacks for the church are among more than 3,000 that United Way Lake County plans to assemble for its annual Stuff the Bus program through Aug. 1 at its Gurnee headquarters, for school districts and not-for-profit organizations in Lake County to help ready children for school.
Jennifer Strom, United Way Lake County’s director of marketing and communications, said Tuesday the organization started this year’s project in June, collecting new school supplies from donors or purchasing them with the proceeds of monetary donations to Stuff the Bus.
Once the supplies and empty backpacks are gathered, Strom said volunteers form an assembly line to pack them with the appropriate learning aids. Major corporations and other groups in the area send teams of volunteers to fill the backpacks.
“Many Lake County families continue to face financial challenges, making the cost of school supplies difficult to manage,” Strom said. “Stuff the Bus helps reduce that burden while ensuring children have the tools they need to succeed in the classroom.”
A group of 12 people from Women United, an affinity group of United Way that, according to Strom, works to support early childhood education in Lake County, was filling backpacks Tuesday. Most of the backpacks are going to younger school-age children.
Tricia Eckland, the manager of the Lake County Women United organization, was one of the people filling the backpacks. She said getting the youngest students off to a good start in the school year is crucial.
“Accessible education in the early years is not available for every child,” Eckland said. “Growth in the early years is absolutely necessary for success.”
Tricia Myers, chair of Women United’s diversity, inclusion and belonging group, was one of the volunteers. She said each of the backpacks for kindergartners had a grade-specific readiness kit.
Myers said some children enter kindergarten writing their name, differentiating shapes, and having some basic reading skills. Others begin their formal schooling with none of that. The kit helps equalize everyone’s footing.
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“The kits get the children ready for kindergarten,” Myers said. “Each backpack represents a child who will be better prepared.”
United Way does not handpick who gets the backpacks. Strom said the school administrators and leaders of not-for-profit organizations know which youngsters come from under-resourced homes and make the selections so they go to children in need.
The backpacks contain a pencil pouch, highlighters, scissors, crayons and other basic supplies. There are also school supplies appropriate to the 21st century, which became universal in 2020 and part of 2021 when students learned remotely because of the COVID pandemic.
“There are stylus pens for their tablets,” Strom said. “They get earbuds or earphones.”
Along with the backpacks, Strom said volunteers will prepare 900 teacher kits containing pencils, paper, notebooks, markers and other consumable school supplies.
“It’s a bag of supplies for when students run out,” Strom said. “Teachers often buy extra supplies out of their own pocket. This helps alleviate teachers of that burden.”
Among the 19 school districts or not-for-profit organizations receiving backpacks are Waukegan Community Unit School District 60, seven other organizations in Waukegan, as well as some from North Chicago, Zion, Round Lake and elsewhere.