A Grade Above: Critical Supplies to Start the Year Strong

Despite the many uncertainties and hardships forced upon us by the pandemic, many children are preparing to take an exciting step—entry into the first grade.

And with a great many families suffering from unemployment and financial distress due to the Coronavirus, we’ve been working extra hard to ensure that school children have a chance at feeling a sense of normality as we approach the school year.

Kids desperately want to feel like they fit in with their peers, despite the hardships their parents may face, so we’re proud to do something to help make a difference for them.

This year, we’re distributing high-quality, orthopedic trolley-style school-bags—along with a water bottle, lunch box, and stationery.

Recently, a concentrated distribution of these schoolbags was held in the Kiryat-Yovel and Har-Nof neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Sderot.

To comply with the social distancing guidelines during the distributions, each family came into the room separately and chose a backpack. Both parents and children were overjoyed.

Among the families were:

• a single father, whose wife had left him to raise their four children alone. He had to move in with his elderly parents, living in harsh conditions.
• a single mother with two children, one of whom has special needs and suffers from severe disorders. She works long hours, living in public housing while struggling to support her family.
• another single mother with two children whose family is in distress due to her sexual assault. Despite having multiple jobs, she was struggling financially and in need of a lot of support.

Our team is happy to report: "the children and parents loved the schoolbags—they were thrilled about the images imprinted on them (SpongeBob and soccer for the boys and princesses for the girls), and they were excited to open the bags’ trolley handles and the different compartments. They were even happier to discover more school supplies inside the school bags."

Your donations have been vital to promote equal opportunities among the young students. Together, we’re doing our part to narrow the achievement gap for all the children in Israel.