JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For many, back-to-school shopping is an annual tradition every school year. However, not every family is so fortunate to afford that luxury, especially with seemingly everything rising in price nowadays.
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“We do the best we can and with inflation, the way everything’s going, it makes it harder,” grandmother Regina Green told Action News Jax. “I mean, ever since COVID hit, it made it real difficult for a lot of families.”
That’s why Saturday morning, VyStar Credit Union and Sulzbacher teamed up to hand out 500 free backpacks filled with school supplies for families in need ahead of back to school in Northeast Florida on Monday.
“If it wasn’t for this, it’d be a while to get almost everything the children would need,” Green said at Saturday’s event as her granddaughters picked out backpacks of their own. “So this right here was a blessing in disguise.”
With every backpack and school supply handed out on Saturday, it makes sure every kid goes into the first day ready to succeed and ready to enjoy the school year.
“If a kid goes to school on day one and doesn’t have what they need, then they start the entire year on the wrong foot,” said Sulzbacher CEO Cindy Funkhouser. “It may seem like just a pack of crayons, but it means so much more.”
“So many things that the youth are dealing with in today’s age,” added Kemal Gasper with VyStar Credit Union. “If we can just do the simple, small things, it’s gonna help.”
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