School Backpacks and Supplies Needed for 2019 Distribution
Summer is halfway over, which means first day of school is quickly approaching in El Paso. With three different school districts making up the demographics of families seeking assistance from YLM when it comes to their children’s needed school supplies, YLM is finding itself in serious need of backpacks and school supplies.
“We had over 1,000 families register to receive backpacks last year,” Elvira Viramontes, Program Director at YLM, shared as she worked on the planning of the upcoming distribution, “For us to fulfill that big of a need here in El Paso alone, we really need donations of backpacks and school supplies to come in during the next five to six weeks.”
With the annual distribution taking place on August 17th during YLM’s Health Fair, donations for this extremely necessary act of kindness are urgently needed.
“It’s a simple and easy service project to put together,” Luz Soto, Director of Youth Ministry at Ascension Lutheran Church in west El Paso explained one of the projects her mission team will be taking on during their mission trip to YLM in two weeks, “With only four of us participating on the first mission trip to be done by Ascension, we needed to find simple projects we could complete during our short time at YLM. Aside from doing some painting and helping with the food distribution on Saturday morning, the biggest challenge will be to complete 216 backpacks with school supplies in four days!”
The hope is for these completed backpacks to help YLM in having more than enough to fulfill the requests, not just in El Paso but also across the border at Anapra and Juarez.
The process to download the list of needed items was as easy, as was buying and shipping. In fact, getting the supplies to YLM resulted in simply ordering everything through Amazon Smile (pick Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care as your charity of choice if you don’t already have one –you shop, Amazon gives! This is another great, and easy, way of supporting YLM) and having it shipped directly to YLM.
“This way, we didn’t have to worry about paying for shipping or transporting the large amount of boxes,” Luz stated as she looked over the supplies to make sure it was all there, “Not only that, but if for some reason we weren’t able to come for our mission trip, all these supplies are already here to be put together and be given out.”
Lydia Williams from Zion Lutheran Church in El Paso, shared how their Lutheran Women’s Missionary League (LWML) have come together to buy and collect backpacks and school supplies, “We’ve been doing this for four or five years now. We apply for Thrivent Action funds, as well as invite the rest of our church to contribute. We were able to buy our backpacks and supplies from a website that sales wholesale, bagsinbulk.com.”
Lydia and the other women in Zion’s LWML will be getting together middle of July to assemble over 45 backpacks, which will be delivered to YLM at the end of the month.
With help from churches like Ascension and Zion Lutheran, as well as individuals or groups, we hope to be able to collect as many backpacks as possible for the next six weeks.
“We’re looking into about 1,000 backpacks with school supplies for El Paso kids alone,” Elvira held up the registration forms ready to be given out the first Saturday of July, “We’re trusting in God, and the giving nature of people, to collect even more than a thousand so we can take completed backpacks into Mexico, where the need is even greater.”
To help with this coming event, please download the printable PDF list of supplies needed.
Possible websites you can use to shop and donate items by getting them directly shipped to YLM are Amazon Smile and bagsinbulk.com.
For any questions or additional information, feel free to call (915) 858-2588 or e-mail YLM’s Program Director, Elvira Viramontes at elvira.viramontes@ylm.org
