The event—which provides assistance to students and their families that need help with items such as school registration, vaccinations and free or reduced lunch registration for the upcoming school year—was held at Fossil Ridge High School, located at 4101 Thompson Road in Fort Worth.
The details
Leigh Cook, director of state and federal programs for Keller ISD, said that she was very excited with the turnout this year.
“This is our fourth year, and we'll count our backpacks and supplies when we're finished and see how many kids came,” Cook said. “But we've had probably well over 1,000 kids—maybe 1,500—come through to get backpacks and supplies, physicals, vaccines, dental screenings and vision screenings, and library cards. So we're very excited. It's an awesome, awesome event.”
The backstory
Cook said that this year, the event started with 1,700 backpacks filled with supplies to give away. All items and services that families receive are donated from local businesses, such as Five Star Ford that donates money to the event each year, the Greater Keller Chamber of Commerce and the Keller ISD Council of PTAs.
The event ran from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. and more than 80 vendors showed up at Fossil Ridge High School to help serve the community, including House of Shine, an educational nonprofit organization based in Grapevine. Amy Spurlock, a volunteer with House of Shine, said that it started 15 years ago as a stay-at-home mom's blog. Today, Spurlock added that House of Shine provides programming and tools focused on building leaders that, in turn, build a thriving community around them.
Quote of note
“We keep [the event] at [Fossil Ridge] high school because the majority of our most needy families are on this side of the district,” Cook said. “And so we want them to be able to get here easily because a lot of families in this area struggle with transportation. So we want them to have ease of access.”
