GROVE CITY — It’s time to begin thinking about back-to-school needs. But for the Grove City Young Professionals, it’s time to begin fundraising for the Food for Kids Backpack Project.
The goal is to provide children who qualify in the school district with food to take home for the weekend. Plans are to launch the program in January of 2013.
The meals will be nutritious, easy to prepare items and will be discreetly delivered each Friday during the school year to the schools, where the teachers will place the food in each child’s backpack while they are not in the room.
For this first fundraising project, the group has printed 2,000 paper backpacks which will be for sale during the month of August for $1 each. Businesses currently selling and displaying the backpacks on windows and walls of their establishments include:
- Beans on Broad
- Elephant & Castle Pub & Restaurant
- Grove City Area Chamber of Commerce
- Grove City County Market
- Grove City Save a Lot
- Guthrie Theatre
- Main Street Diner
- My Brothers Place
- Nancy's Hair Loft
- Rachel’s Restaurant
- Wendell August
This is the first of many fundraising events being planned by the GCYP, and will be a great start to raise awareness of this need to residents of the Grove City Area School District.
In order to make this project possible, about $67,000 per school year is needed. “We want to make it possible for anyone, whether they be living on a fixed income or just people who care about this need, to be able to support this project by purchasing a backpack,” said Beth Black, executive director of the Grove City Area Chamber of Commerce.
The GCYP group is a subsidiary of the Chamber.
Backpack was proposed by the 2011 Leadership Grove City class, a program the Chamber sponsored last fall. This group has continued to meet, long after the class “graduated” from the program, and researched ideas from other programs already in existence.
It has taken the combined efforts of the Grove City Area School District, who will identify students who are eligible for the program; the Grove City Area United Way, who will be the fiscal agent and will oversee a program coordinator; and the GCYP, who will be the fundraising arm of this project.
Black added, “None of this could have happened without the full cooperation of each group. We are extremely proud of this 2011 Leadership Grove City class, who have continued to meet and plan because they are committed to the project.”
The GCYP is planning a large formal Backpack Benefit, tentatively scheduled for May 2013, as well as many other fundraising routes. They plan to contact businesses within the Grove City area, to answer any questions and urge them to support this worthy project. All donations are tax deductable.
Anyone having questions may direct them to Beth Black by emailing execdir@shopgrovecity.com.
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