THE BACKPACK INITIATIVE
Each child travels a unique road on their educational journey and nothing is more exciting than that first day of school. The anticipation of awaiting the big yellow school bus with your lunchbox, brand new clothes and haircut is palpable. Marble notebooks, new folders, pencils, markers and rulers have all been nicely tucked into a bright new backpack. It is an important day both for children and parents. But sadly, this nostalgic picture of American life is not the reality for many children. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 21% (15 million children) live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold. When we acknowledge such inequality, we see that our nation is sending our students on their educational journey without all of the tools needed.
The Backpack Initiative is a crucial component in achieving M4PE’s vision of equity in our nation’s public schools. That’s why March for Public Education is partnering with Pack Your Back to bring school supplies and backpacks to 2,000 students in Detroit and Washington DC who need financial assistance. Your generous donation will help to fund not only the many expenses for the March for Public Education, but you’ll also provide students the experience of that first day of school that we all deserve. Your generous donation will fund not only the March for Public Education on July 22nd, 2017 and its future work, but ten percent of each donation will go to Pack Your Back and their continued work to serve underprivileged children in urban and rural communities across the United States.
The great American thinker and educational reformer Horace Mann once said “Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” This quote still rings true today and its time that 21st Century America realized the potential of all its people.

