Giving Back, Girls Fill 400 Backpacks with School Supplies

Smart Start: A Great Back-to-School Project for Giving Back Girls

By E. Richard Fortunato

Giving Back Girls Sort
Backpacks & School Supplies

Based in Southington, CT, about 18 miles southwest of Hartford, there's a group of mostly middle school and some high school girls who call themselves the Giving Back Girls.  It was actually started in 2010 by Erin and Emily Gibney, 14 year old twin daughters of Tricia Gibney, COO of The Arc of Southington. Inspired by the generous community service of their parents and so many in this generous community who help meet the needs of others who are less fortunate than most. Now in their third year, the GBG have grown to 23 girls, predominantly 7th to 10th graders, ranging in age from 7 to 15,

The Giving Back Girls are involved in several service programs during the course of the year. For example, there are “Fill the Truck” Food Drives held several times a year. The girls distribute flyers outside of the local Walmart requesting shoppers to help by making a food purchase to donate to help feed the hungry as they finish shopping. Food gathered is put on the truck and delivered by the Fire Department to Southington Community Services to help feed hungry families. 

Girls give hundreds of
hours to a "Smart Start"

The GB Girls run Bake Sales to raise money for the Food Pantry to buy food from FoodShare which are always needed to supplement food and cash donations. The help of GB Girls is increasingly significant and helps prevent food stocks at the Southington Food Pantry from falling short at times. 

Just this month the girls have collaborated with the Southington Community Services annual Smart Start Back-to-School Backpack program. Southington Community Services secures backpack donations for K to 12th grade kids whose families need a bit of financial help. The Giving Back Girls organize and do the work of sorting backpacks by size, age, gender and color, labeling them accordingly, filling them with school supplies such as pencils, pens, crayons, memo pads, markers, color pencils, pencil sharpeners, folders, fun books and fun bags.  

Backpacks and supplies are received from private donations and special drives, one of which is the “Fill A School Bus Drive” in which the Giving Back Girls participate. The girls hand out flyers listing needed school supplies to shoppers going into Walmart. Southington shoppers are very supportive, generously adding needed school supplies to their planned purchases. On the way out, the GB Girls assist them in getting donated supplies onto the school bus.  

The girls worked at the Southington Community Services warehouse filling the backpacks with supplies, organizing them according to age and gender guidelines. The goal was to fill 400 donated backpacks by Aug. 19^th, ready for pickup, delivery and distribution by SCS at Derynoski School on the next two days.  They met their objective and helped the Board of Education and SCS distribute over 400 backpacks to kids who really appreciated it.

Erin (L),and Madison organizing material
for the team of Giving Back Girls

Erin Gibney and a few others organized a system for filling the backpacks efficiently. “In a way,” Erin said, “My sister, Emily and I feel it’s training and experience for the younger girls who will be leaders in future years.”. SCS Director, Janet Mellon, said: “I am thrilled by the growing generosity and cooperation of the Giving Back Girls, the Board of Education, Walmart and other private donors.” This year, Dr. Carol Grant decided to promote the program, asking patients and friends to drop off donations of needed supplies at her office.  

The mission of this blog originally was to reach out to others for common ground, something our politicians and government at all levels still need to do to make this country's generosity more effective and efficient.  As time moved along, as the reader can see, my focus on what people in communities are doing to help their neighbors in their own communities. This mission has given me great joy in telling these stories.  Our children and their parents and grand parents need to look closely around them to see how many are actually contributing to the community either as volunteers or as donors in kind or in money.  There are so many helping to carry the burdens of others.  My hope and prayer is for many more who are sitting on the sidelines to join and be part of the community of responsible citizens.  Are you reaching out to help others or are you just watching the world go around?

Please comment below and share what you are doing to help your community or your country and forward this blog along to a friend.