There’s over a month left in summer vacation, but that doesn’t mean families aren’t getting ready for the 2023-2024 school year.
For some parents, that preparation is more stressful than it is for others, especially for those experiencing financial difficulties, said Northern Kentucky Harvest President and Be Concerned Grants Director Paul Gottbrath.
“This helps them with one ingredient in that formula that they need to live up to for getting kids ready to go back to school,” Gottbrath said.
Gottbrath spoke with LINK nky about this year’s Backpacks and Breakfast event, which is put on by a partnership between three local nonprofits: Northern Kentucky Harvest, Be Concerned: The People’s Pantry and the Brighton Center. Started in 2001, the event sees the distribution of free backpacks and school supplies to select families in the Northern Kentucky region.
That’s not how the event started, though.
“Actually, we started it because we were trying to do something with Frisch’s,” Gottbrath said.
He said that first Northern Kentucky Harvest was simply trying to collect surplus food from local Frisch’s restaurants, which they would then give to places like Be Concerned, Brighton Center and similar organizations.
Eventually, however, they began holding annual events in the summer at Goebel Park in Covington, where people could come and get Frisch’s breakfast and, well, backpacks.
“And so on the first Saturday in August every year, we would take our stuff over there, and it was a first come-first serve basis,” Gottbrath said. “We did 150 backpacks the first year, and we just kept increasing it every year.”
These days, the number of backpacks distributed easily exceeds 1,000. Gottbrath said the highest number of backpacks they’ve given out was somewhere between 1,125 and 1,140. When LINK nky interviewed Gottbrath, they had collected 1,062 backpacks, and Gottbrath was expecting more to come in before the event on Aug. 12 and 13.
Even though the event no longer serves breakfast, recipients receive a Frisch’s gift certificate for a free kid’s meal in every backpack.
The pandemic threw a wrench in the event’s usual operations. In 2020, they shifted from a first come-first serve model to a drive-thru model in the parking lot of Be Concerned, a model they’ll use this year. Interested families can sign up for a backpack online, which places them into a random lottery pool. Chosen families are then informed and instructed on when and how to pick up their supplies.
“We’ve already got 1,200 kids that are signed up for it,” Gottbrath said.
Students enrolled in preschool through 12th grade in Boone, Kenton, Campbell, Grant, Pendleton and Gallatin counties can sign up. Students in any district as well home-schooled and private school students are eligible.
Although the structure of the event has changed over the years, the community need has not, Gottbrath said.
“The need of the families has not changed,” Gottbrath said. “I think the need of the families has always been there, and we’ve just been able to find better ways to identify it and to promote the project to them.”
For many families in the region, Gottbrath said, school supplies aren’t always easy to budget for.
“A lot of these families are living from paycheck to paycheck, or some of them don’t have paychecks,” Gottbrath said. “And they’re struggling just to pay for rent, for food, for clothing for their kids, just the basic stuff. So here comes the start of school, and if you’ve got a large family,… it’s gonna be $200 or $300.”
From his observations at Be Concerned, the pandemic and the subsequent years’ economic pressures have, if anything, increased the need.
“Last year, 2022, was the biggest year we’ve ever had in terms of the people that we serve,” Gottbrath said of the numbers at Be Concerned. “And I think the same thing is true with the need for these [supplies]. These families have a need for this too.”
To put your name in the running for free supplies, visit Be Concerned’s online registration page. The deadline to register is July 26 at 5:00 p.m.
If you have any additional questions, you can contact Paul Gottbrath at (859)750-2813 or paulgottbrath@gmail.com.