How South Jersey shows up for local kids
The words community and South Jersey tend to go hand in hand. Between the locals, all the small businesses and nonprofits in our area, there are endless amounts of ways to get involved, help others and connect with people. When given an opportunity or an event to help others, the people and places that make up our South Jersey community really pull through.
One instance of the community showing up for each other is the Everyone’s Children yearly back-to-school backpack drive.
Everyone’s Children is a local nonprofit organization that helps children and families in our community. They have three initiatives a year: making spring baskets, holiday adopt-a-child, and their back-to-school backpack drive.
This year, the back-to-school backpack drive is set to be the largest backpack drive organizer Christine Sands-Bennett has done in the last 20-plus years of running Everyone’s Children.
A large part of that is due to a new partnership with Motivated Mommies and Curve Orthodontics, as well as Melissa McAlarnen from Shore to Please Designs/Shore Connect for involving more than 60 businesses in the backpack drive and raising money.
Between these organizations and the locals who run them, in just a few days’ time, they were able to raise enough money to donate more than 280 filled backpacks for our local community.
After running Everyone’s Children for so long, Sands-Bennett has a list of people in our community who she knows need help. She knows which children could use the backpacks and school supplies and will distribute them to the members of our community who need them most.
This year, these donated backpacks will also be stuffed with the school supplies the students will need.
Morgan Orlowski, founder of Motivated Mommies, shared that all of their kids and friends will be coming to help load the bags. She added that not only will this be a huge blessing for the kids receiving the bags, but also for the kids who are coming to help, so they can see what it’s like to help and do things for members of our community.
“This initiative means that our community shows up,” Orlowski said. It really took all of Christine’s hard work, for Motivated Mommies and Curve to get involved and those 60 other businesses to help. It was like a ripple effect of everyone wanting to get involved and help, and as more joined, more reached out.”
The goal of this initiative is simple: to help ease the burden of families within our community. Whether that be your neighbor, friend or a complete stranger, you never truly know what anyone is going through, but in our community, the goal is to help one another regardless.
“Our community definitely has each other’s backs,” Orlowski said. With this drive, we’re able to see that the greatest thing is [how] the community [has eachother’s] backs. As our community continues to grow, people’s generosity is growing, too.”
And now, that community has one more opportunity to show up. On Aug. 27, volunteers are invited to join Everyone’s Children, Motivated Mommies and the many people who helped make this drive possible at the Linwood Library Resource Room from 4-6 p.m.
Whether you come with your kids, a friend, a coworker or on your own, every set of hands can make a difference. Come help fill these backpacks, get them ready to go and be a part of the ripple effect that made this year’s drive possible. After all, this is what South Jersey does best: showing up for one another.
Delaney Crawford is a dynamic entrepreneur with a passion for storytelling and digital marketing. Driven by a desire to empower local businesses, Delaney founded DLC Media, a company dedicated to helping businesses enhance their brand image and thrive online.
