Just in time for back-to-school

Back to School Community Giveback

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The Second Annual Back to School Community Giveback is uniting Marion County residents and civic organizations in an effort to provide over 7,000 backpacks and educational supplies to local students.

The Community Foundation for Ocala/Marion County, AdventHealth Ocala, and Marion County Public Schools (MCPS), have partnered to provide materials to families in need before the school year begins. This large-impact event, which kicked off on July 28 at Lake Lillian in the City of Belleview, is bringing together over 200 volunteers and several supporting nonprofits across 10 distribution locations to ensure that Marion County children can select their own backpack.

This past Saturday was the second giveaway and included seven locations. This Saturday, Aug. 5, the event will be held in Ocklawaha at the Forest Community Center in partnership with East Marion Elementary, Marion County, and Marion County Parks and Recreation to help provide school supplies to students who live in the Ocala National Forest area. The wrap-up day will be Aug. 8 at Frank DeLuca YMCA Gymnasium to help anyone who still has not picked a backpack up.

Parents could choose from four different dates to register their students, however, registration is no longer available for the upcoming two giveaways. One backpack is available per child and each includes spiral notebooks, pencils, prong folders, glue sticks, and hand sanitizers.

Ashley Gerds, the Director of Strategic Engagement at the Community Foundation for Ocala/Marion County, shared in an interview with the “Gazette” the level of impact the giveaway really leaves and how much it has grown in a short time.

“Each child deserves to have the tools they need to be successful and get the education they need,” she said.

Gerds noted that the reaction of parents and their children at the giveaways was more than she expected.

“I knew that this was a help in the community and that parents really appreciated the effort. Some parents cried, they were so grateful,” she said. “They appreciated having convenient locations to bring their child to pick out their own backpack, get supplies, and get excited to go back to school.”

In 2019, Gerds was the General Manager at Paddock Mall in Ocala and partnered with the AdventHealth Ocala, the Bullard Family Foundation and Skanska USA in providing a local backpack giveaway there. During the COVID-19 health precautions, they revamped the event to create a drive-thru option instead of having to enter the mall. In 2021, Gerds left her position with the Paddock Mall to work for the Community Foundation where she realized through her affiliation with MCPS that there was a severe need in the community to help students and parents at a bigger capacity.

The Bullard Family Foundation, AdventHealth Ocala, and Skanska USA continued as partners of the event, and additional partnerships were signed up to broaden the event’s outreach last year from one location at the mall to seven locations. The City of Bellview, Marion County Children’s Alliance, and the Frank DeLuca YMCA Family Center joined the initiative this year and added three new locations. Since access to transportation is an issue for some residents in the county, the organizers wanted to ensure the event was within reasonable distance for families living in rural areas.

“They wanted to be able to give back to their city and their community in a big way and they’re helping support that initiative,” Gerds said.

Over 3,000 students were registered two weeks before the first event, Gerds said. Last year, with seven locations and fewer materials for distribution, the giveback hit capacity. To prevent that from happening this year, organizers planned to provide supplies to over 1,000 more students.

Community impact

Gerds pointed out that many families are struggling financially and this backpack drive means a great deal to them.

Many parents, she said, have to choose between purchasing school supplies or putting food on the table for their family. Also, she noted, the community is still recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which cost students many months of in-school learning. There are 44,000 students in Marion County and a significant percentage of them are below the poverty level. Gerds said even though there is not enough school supplies for all of the county’s students, this initiative is helping in a little way.

“It makes me so proud to know that there are so many of us who care in this community to be able to help those falling on hard times right now, hoping and knowing that when they get into a better place, they are going to be able to help pay it forward one day,” Gerds voiced.

The Community Foundation is partnered with over 40 nonprofits and together saves any extra backpacks and dispenses them throughout the school year. They provide optimal opportunities for each student to obtain the supplies needed even if they missed the drive.

Gerds shared circumstances, besides going back to school, where a child may need more supplies.

“It could be a foster child who went into foster care suddenly and did not get to take their backpack with them,’’ she said. “It could be a new student coming into the school system, or it could be a domestic violence situation where the kids were taken from the home. There are a lot of different situations that happen where a child needs a backpack or school supplies.”

An effort this size required hundreds of people to come together to help. In preparation, 500 volunteers went to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa before the drive to pack 30,000 backpacks. Gill Logistics donated three trucks and drivers to load 24 pallets of backpacks that 30 volunteers from Ocala helped stuff. They then got those back to Ocala to distribute them at 10 locations.

“There are just so many different partners that help give back to our community and it would not be possible without them, and they are the true heroes,” Gerds said.

Gerds acknowledged she could not have organized it on her own. She worked closely with Director of Marketing at AdventHealth Ocala Sara Russell and the Executive Director of Communications and Community Engagement at MCPS Lauren Debick.

“All three of us have taken a piece and a part to work together to make this happen,” Gerds said. “Not just one of us could do this, it takes the three of us to do the bulk of the effort. But we would not be anywhere without all of our community sponsors and the volunteers who help us. It truly takes a village to make this possible.”

Preventing dishonesty

Last year, a person claiming to represent a local business went to one of the drive’s seven locations and fabricated a story about needing about 20 backpacks for a foster home. A week later, those same backpacks were being advertised at the business’s own back-to-school event.

That business had approached donors in the community with the façade that their money would go toward materials for the back-to-school event. However, since they used the school supplies they picked up at the Community Foundation giveaway, they pocketed the donated money. A volunteer from Liberty Middle School reported this to the foundation event organizers, who worked with local authorities to contact the business. They urged them to return the sponsorship dollars and said they could join the giveback cause to aid others instead of misusing it for personal gain.

There also were attempts to get around the one-backpack-per-student rule. People visited the various locations and collected more backpacks than necessary. Gerds said they made it easy to do so because volunteers did not turn anyone away.

To prevent this from reoccurring, this year student numbers were required for the registration process to ensure all students were real and were in need of the materials. If the students did not attend a public school, they could use their attended school numbers or contact the organizers to register them.

The giveback organizers hope for more people to join the cause and expand the drive. Many organizations and nonprofits, they say, are duplicating services that could be better utilized in a combined effort. If they volunteered their materials and hands to this giveback, it could cover the county’s needs and demonstrate inclusivity.

In the end, it’s not about competition but helping Marion County children.

“For these students, this is their backpack, this is something that they’re going to carry all year,’’ Gerds said. “We want them to be happy, we want them to feel empowered when they walk through those doors into school.”