History

Since 2010, the impact of community giving on the Collect of Kids program has been far-reaching:

• Contributions have increased about 20% percent each year for the last four years.
• The number of students served has increased by 84% since 2011.
• The value of the backpacks, school supplies, and in-kind contributions from partners is more than $600,000 since the program was created in 2010. The value of the hours devoted by volunteers and others to collect and distribute the school supplies—priceless.
• In 2014, about 30,400 students in need in Fairfax County started school with school supplies and backpacks.

Community donations of cash, backpacks, and calculators, helped over ½ of the roughly 52,250 students in Fairfax County Public Schools who receive free and reduced meals.

Thank You to all of our donors and partner organizations!

So that we can reach our goal of serving all 52,250 students, we are already accepting donations for 2015. Feel free to DONATE today!

The office of Business and Community Partnerships and the Fairfax County Office of Public Private Partnerships (OP3)  have teamed to coordinate Collect for Kids – a countywide school supply drive initiative with aims to add efficiencies and reduce redundancies in current models.

In 2013-14 an anonymous donor discovered the Collect for Kids website and contacted FCPS Office of Communication and Community Outreach’s Office of Business and Community Partnerships who passed the donor to Sherry Noud in the Special Services (Homeless Liaison’s Office). Ultimately the donor gave $159,000 to the Collect for Kids effort for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years.

In 2013, Innolance Inc., a company that engages in web development partnered with FCPS to redo the Collect for Kids website (collectforkids.org). In the measured time-frame of 2013-14, along with their standard web support, Innolance did considerable  gratis effort for the Collect for Website, valued at $25,000. 

As part of the 2012-13 website redevelopment we collaborated with Apple Federal Credit Union and added a monetary donations portal to the Collect for Kids site. In 2013-14 it generated almost $5,000.

The entire effort, which involves representatives from 21 entities (not-for-profit, for-profit, and government), resulted in more than 30,400 students receiving backpacks and quality school supplies to start the school year prepared to learn and without some of the negative labels often associated with students who may not have the means to purchase school supplies.

This past year’s effort represented a 23.8% increase in the number of students served from 2012-13 (24,557 students served), and an 84.2% increase since the program’s inception in 2011 (16,500 students served).