Our Back to School Drive was a huge success! During our two-week supply drive, we had over 10,000 items donated, including over 500 backpacks, almost 1,700 folders, over 2,500 pencils and almost 1,000 pens! The Prevention Center would like to acknowledge Hero Nutritional Products Co. for donating pencils and vitamins for 450 students, McDonalds of Santa Ana for donating free meals for our volunteers who stuffed ALL the backpacks with supplies, the Delhi Center in Santa Ana for providing a venue to organize and stuff our backpacks and of course all the support from our generous donors. Thank you to everyone who made our Back to School Drive a great success. 
Our needs were great but thanks to our donors we were able to go above and beyond our requested amount of supplies! For this drive, we had a total of 234 K-5th grade and 180 6-12th grade backpacks requested by caseworkers, making a grand total of 414 requested backpacks. We received an astonishing 513 backpacks from the drive! The Center will provide the spare backpacks for our Basic Needs program that focuses on providing important household items to families in Orange County. All the other supplies such as pencils and folders were either put into the backpacks, or packed into plastic bags to be distributed to our caseworkers.
Volunteers Who Stuffed Backpacks at the Delhi Center
Thank you to the following businesses throughout Orange County that served as drop off locations: Bagels and Brew in Aliso Viejo, Lake Forrest and Mission Viejo, CVS Pharmacy in Mission Viejo, Dana Point City Hall, Dana Point Community Center, The Dragon Institute (Marital Arts Instruction), Hairmasters in Dana Point, Infiniti Mission Viejo, Mandy’s Pizza, Memorial Care Health System Fountain Valley, The Mission Viejo Library, Quake Baseball Academy, Raise the Barre Fitness, Rancho Santa Margarita Library, Ritz Cleaners, Haskell & White, Waste Management, St. Joseph’s Episcopal of Buena Park, and Toy Town.
Volunteer Boy Scouts Enjoying McDonald's Chicken Nuggets
Even though the official Back to School Drive has finished, we are always accepting donations at our Basic Needs warehouse.
Thank you to the entire Orange County Community for your generosity and support!
