Spotlight With David Daggett: The Daggett Shuler Back-to-School Backpack Program

Wow! Summer flew by, in part because school started several weeks early for our local public schools. I know the students in your life are excited to be back with their friends, in new classrooms, and with new teachers, ready to learn this fall! Please join me in cheering on our students as they begin another year of school!

The start of the school year is very influential for our young people.  Research shows that a positive start can change a life forever. Unfortunately, many students will not have the supplies that they need for a successful start to the new school year. To help with this, Daggett Shuler and the Winston-Salem Police Department have worked together for the past decade to give underprivileged children the right start to the school year.

We pack 250 backpacks with all the items an elementary school-aged child needs and deliver these backpacks to 5 local elementary schools before school begins. School administrators will identify the students who need these items the most. Those students will be provided with a brand-new backpack filled with supplies to start the school year right!

In addition to backpacks going directly to the schools, our team packed an additional 76 backpacks that went to the Bright Beginnings program at the William G. White, Jr YMCA. Children in the Bright Beginnings program get the opportunity to go back-to-school clothes shopping with a mentor before receiving one of our packed backpacks to finish their ensembles! New clothes AND a new backpack – WOW!

Pencils, crayons, pencil sharpeners, scissors, notebooks, rulers, glue sticks, erasers, two-pocket folders, and earbuds will help students who otherwise would not have anything to start the year. In fact, studies show that children who start the school year without the required materials quickly end up lagging behind their peers. Providing children with their own backpack and supplies improves their grades and classroom behavior, and they often become more engaged with school and learning. And giving a student a new backpack sets them on the right course for the whole school year.

Back-to-school can be a very expensive time for any family, and after the volatile past two years, many more families have fallen on hard times. Our Back-to-School Backpack program helps relieve some of the burden of outfitting a young student for school and will hopefully bring a smile to a child who gets to pick out their brand-new backpack.

Please join us in encouraging and supporting our young people as they head back to school.  A great start means a great future, and that is great for all of us and the future of our community!