News and updates for the Blessings Backers .
Blessings Bulletin: News from the Backpack
2019 is off to a great start! This school year, our goal is to send more than 90,000 kids across the country home on Fridays with backpacks full of satisfying and nutritional food. With the help of thousands of caring volunteers and generous donors, like you, we can provide more than 3 million hunger-free weekends for children across America.
#HAPPYBDAYTOBLESSINGS CHALLENGE
Watch this video to learn about our 10th Birthday Challenge.
Join today in celebrating Blessings’ 10 th birthday with our social media challenge! This challenge is a fun way to raise awareness and support to feed more kids this weekend, and celebrate our 10th birthday. We invite YOU to participate! Join us in singing "Happy Birthday" to Blessings, post the video on social media, and challenge your friends to do the same! 

  1. Video yourself singing Happy Birthday to Blessings in a Backpack
  2. Challenge/tag a friend to do the same
  3. Tag @BlessingsinaBackpack and add #HappyBDAYtoBlessings

Click here for all the details of the challenge.
CREATING HAVENS OF HOPE
Life in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood is anything but easy. Located on the city’s South Side, Englewood is plagued by chronic poverty, violent crime, and loss of population — things that make local kids face harsh realities much sooner than anyone should have to. Of the 551 shootings that occurred in Chicago in 2018, over 10% came from Englewood. The life expectancy in Englewood is only 69.5 years, 7.4 years less than the city’s overall or 13.8 years less than the city’s Near North neighborhood. In Englewood, parents have to fear for their children’s lives and kids have to worry about where their next meal might come from.
Thankfully, there are havens of hope in Englewood.

Stagg Elementary School offers a stark contrast to the kids’ everyday lives. When you walk through the halls of Stagg, the chaotic world outside disappears, and a different, welcoming chaos comes into focus. Children can be heard laughing and running in a sea of navy-blue shirts and khaki pants. A bulletin board tells students about “all the places you’ll go” this school year, and the gym is decorated with signs cheering for the Bulls, the school mascot. In here, kids have a chance to dream about what they will do when they grow up — about how they might change the world.

For the past decade, the Union League Club of Chicago (ULC) has sponsored Stagg’s robust Boys and Girls Club program. The Stagg Boys and Girls Club program has 125 students each school year, ranging in age from 6 to 13. Students in the program enjoy after-school activities, such as dance team, drum line, computer coding, and tutoring services.

In September 2015, a Blessings in a Backpack donor from ULC introduced Blessings to the Stagg community. Through a partnership between the ULC, the Stagg Boys and Girls Club, and Blessings, Stagg students now benefit from daily enrichment activities and weekend nutrition. Stagg administrators report an increase in school attendance and better test scores throughout this three-year partnership. This testimony speaks volumes to the great work you make happen through your generosity.

At Blessings, we know that our program supports children who grow up in every type of environment — from large cities and their sprawling suburbs, to small farm towns, and everywhere in between. Through partnerships such as the one with the Stagg Boys and Girls Club, we hope to reach every child in America who lacks access to consistent nutrition. We think every kid has the right to grow, learn, and thrive — to be a kid. To make more hunger-free weekends possible, please click here.
We shared impact stories from the perspective
of kids’ backpacks. Click here to read the story
of Annie's backpack, pictured above.
Thank you to everyone who participated in our 5th annual Giving Tuesday campaign!
Over $50,000 was raised in 24 hours on Nov. 27, 2018 — that’s more than double our goal! Thanks to you, more than 87,000 kids will find food at the bottom of their backpack every Friday. We are touched by the record number of donors who participated in making our Giving Tuesday campaign a success to ensure children receive the nutrition they need to grow, learn, and thrive.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Chicago Birthday Bash
February 28, 2019
4:30-6:30 p.m. CST
Blessings in a Backpack Classic
September 16, 2019
10 a.m. CST

PACKING EVENTS
You can help us meet our goal of packing 135,000 bags by the end of the school year.
If you haven’t already, book your next packing event today!
Celebrating a Decade of Feeding Kids on the Weekends
This school year we are celebrating a decade of feeding kids on the weekends and looking forward to the future. To ensure the kids in your community have full bellies over the weekend, you help us send them home on Fridays with backpacks full of satisfying and nutritional food. Thank you for all that you do. We wouldn’t be celebrating our 10th birthday without YOU!