Backpacks event to benefit K-12 students
COVINGTON, Ky. – If your children need supplies for the coming school year, you have until 5 p.m. July 26 to register online for Northern Kentucky Harvest’s 23rd annual free Backpacks & Breakfast giveaway.
The organization said in a news release that it will be distributing 1,058 free backpacks full of supplies during a weekend distribution in August, but you have to sign up to be eligible.
The event is open to students in preschool through 12th grade in Northern Kentucky, with many of those living or going to school in Covington.
The giveaway is meant to help families struggling to provide food, shelter and other basics to better accommodate the cost of readying their kids for the start of the new school year.
“It eases stress on families at this time of year,” said Harvest President Paul Gottbrath. “But also, you give a kid a new backpack, it’s amazing how that increases the kid’s excitement about the new school year.”
To register online for the 2023 Backpacks & Breakfast, fill out this Registration form and hit “submit.” You can also get to the form this way:
- Go to www.beconcerned.org
- Click on the “News & Events” tab (if you’re using a phone, you have to click on the three green bars in the top righthand corner to get to that tab).
- In the drop-down menu, click on “Backpacks and Breakfast.”
- Completely fill out the form.
- Hit “submit.”
Recipient families will receive a text the week of Aug. 7 telling them a specific time to pick up their backpacks on either Saturday, Aug. 12, or Sunday, Aug. 13. Drivers should pull into the parking lot of Be Concerned: The People’s Pantry (1100 Pike St., Covington), and a volunteer will come to them.
If more students sign up for the project than backpacks are available, recipients will be determined by a lottery.
Frisch’s, Harvest’s original partner in the event, will again participate by providing gift certificates to the restaurant in each backpack.
Major support for the project comes from, among others, the Butler Foundation, the R.C. Durr Foundation, the Scripps Howard Foundation, the Western & Southern Financial Fund, the Summertime Kids Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Humana Healthy Horizons Medicaid, and the SofaGives Charitable Fund.
Volunteers at the event include many from the City of Covington.
In the last two decades, Backpacks & Breakfast has grown into the largest school readiness event in Northern Kentucky. Over the life of the event, Northern Kentucky Harvest has given away nearly 16,000 backpacks.
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For more information, contact Paul Gottbrath at (859) 750-2813 or paulgottbrath@gmail.com.