Action News Jax’s Family Focus is collecting new school supplies for kids in need through its Tools for School drive on Thursday afternoon. The supplies will be distributed through the First Coast YMCA.
If you have any extra new school supplies you don’t know what to do with, or if you’d like to get some for kids in need, you can donate them today at the St. Johns Town Center.
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“I went to Target and bought supplies,” said visitor Judy Carnie.
“We donated some lunch box stuff,” another visitor, Randal Trinidad-Amber, said.
Read: Info about the Action News Jax Family Focus ‘Tools for School’ supply drive
Whether they drove up or walked up, people from all over, including some of our own at Action News Jax, answered the call to donate school supplies.
“My children [are] grown, my grandchildren don’t live close by so I just wanted to help out the kids at school,” Carnie said.
“I just wanted to teach her young that giving back is important to our community,” Trinidad-Amber said.
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Boxes full of school supplies will be loaded into the back of a Readers Movers truck, which they have provided free of charge in order to get the supplies over to the First Coast YMCA.
The First Coast YMCA serves more than 3,000 kids a day.
“The community gets to give back to this most important cause,” said Eric Mann, President and CEO of First Coast YMCA. “And that is as children go back to school, it’s so important for them to get proper supplies.”
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“That’s everything, that’s one part I can just check off and keep moving,” echoed mother Cobi Gainous.
She said she’s grateful to be one of the families receiving these supplies for her kids through the YMCA, and explained that something as simple as a backpack can empower a child to start the school year on a high note.
“We’re looking forward to seeing the smile on our kids’ faces as we walk in with their new backpacks and relieve that stress of, ‘Where am I gonna have a pencil?’” she said. “They’re gonna have their pencils, they’re gonna have that paper because we’re giving them that confidence.”
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