Back To School Drive
PARTNER: Boys & Girls Club
DATE: August 2022
LOCATION: San Mateo, California
Over 200 children received backpacks filled with essential school supplies.
Overview:
We launched this project because we recognize the privileges we’ve grown up with—and we believe every student deserves the tools (and the encouragement) to start the school year strong. To kick off the school year, we partnered with the Boys & Girls Club to help provide backpacks for underserved youth in our community at their activity fair.
We didn’t just drop off supplies—we created a full experience. From carnival games and ticketed prize booths to a dance party, pizza, and ice cream, the day was designed to bring joy, confidence, and connection. Every child left with a fully stocked backpack - the look on their faces when they knew what they were receiving was a memorable moment for us.
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The Boys & Girls Club was an organization that we knew we wanted to be a part of. This organization aligned perfectly with our mission at Keep It Kind. This is a nonprofit that specifically focuses on kids. A close friend of ours has a parent that was a part of the Boys & Girls club as a youth and after hearing our mission they connected us to a board member.
We reached out to the board member and discovered there was a need for teen mentors in the district. This was one of the first projects we fully owned from start to finish, and it’s one we continue to build on in partnership with the Boys & Girls Club.
As co-founders of Keep it Kind, we planned and executed the entire event ourselves, with support from our families and a team member at the Boys & Girls Club.
We crafted a detailed outreach email to our community members from school, sport teams and friends explaining our goals and received generous donations of backpacks, school supplies, and funding from our local community. We leaned on the resources already available at the Boys & Girls Club and focused on creating an afternoon that felt both fun and meaningful.
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We worked closely with a Boys & Girls Club local team member who mentored us through the event. We created a carnival, provided dinner and gifted each child with a new backpack for the start of the school year.
We determined which carnival games we were going to set up based on what was available to us by the Boys & Girls Club. We had to get creative since items were limited.
We set up carnival-style games where kids earned tickets they could exchange at our prize booth. The prizes were provided by the Boys & Girls Club and included slinkies, whistles, balls and other fun small items. We hosted a dance party, served up pizza and ice cream, and brought the energy all afternoon.
In addition to the main event, we ran a backpack donation drive and later hosted a bingo fundraiser to help support future initiatives.
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Over 200 children received brand-new backpacks filled with essential school supplies. Majority of these children had never received a brand new backpack filled with all of the essentials including, pens, pencils, binders and notebooks.
More importantly, they got to experience a rare day designed just for them—full of joy, encouragement, and community. Watching the kids light up as they realized what they were receiving was something we’ll never forget. It reminded us why we started Keep It Kind in the first place: to show up, lift others, and lead with compassion—one event at a time.
