NORFOLK, Va. - A local nonprofit organization, ForKids is making sure homeless kids are starting school with all the supplies they need with a backpack drive. To help ForKids break the homeless cycle, Southern Bank pitched in.
More than 75 backpacks collected at Southern Bank are filled up with supplies to help homeless kids.
"These are literally children that without the support of folks like Southern Bank could not go to school with the supplies they needed. If you can't go to school, you can't actually do schoolwork, then you slip even further behind," said Rachel Newman, the annual fund and special projects manager at ForKids.
In addition to the donated backpacks, Southern Bank donated $1,000 so ForKids can purchase any other supplies they need to put in the backpacks.
"If Southern Bank can give them a little bit of a lift up to help them feel confident when they walk in, then we win. It's a win-win situation for us," said Kelly Johnson, the Assistant Vice President and branch manager.
For the parents of kids who are getting the backpacks, it's a huge weight lifted off their shoulders.
"School supplies is really a hard extra addition for our families, especially when their focus needs to be on paying rent, paying bills, getting food," said Newman.
ForKids has started giving out the backpacks to kids and Southern Bank knows with every backpack they donated, they are setting up that child for success when they start school.
