Welcome to Backpacks for Success!

Imagine that every child has a full backpack of school supplies on the first day of school. By participating in Backpacks for Success, you can help make that vision a reality. 

Backpacks for Success is a web-based program created to raise consciousness and build community support for children throughout the Northeast Ohio region, and wider. This program is designed to inspire religious communities, secular organizations, and individuals to provide backpacks and school supplies for local school-age children whose families have limited resources. With these tools, our children can more fully participate in getting the education that is their inherent human right.

At the heart of Backpacks for Success is a web-based network of program participants, each committed to creating an individualized project based on the ideas and needs of those involved. This website is the program’s hub, providing inspiration, information, and connections among those participating.

In Resources, you will find step-by-step guidelines for setting up your organization’s project, sample lists of school supplies, and suggested school districts and public service agencies to contact and donate to, if you would like ideas. 

Participant Info will provide you with a list of participating religious communities and organizations, ideas from participating organizations as they discover what works well, and tallies of backpacks with supplies taken to schools and agencies.

Please register with us and share the impact of your own project. Your success stories will inspire others to launch their own programs!

“Nothing underscores our common humanity more powerfully than creating a future for children.”

Greg Mortensen, author of Three Cups of Tea and builder of schools for Afghan and Pakistani girls, at a lecture at Case Western Reserve University, Fall 2009.