LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Youth Villages is a national organization that primarily works with young people that are aging out of the foster care system and at-risk families. They're working to stuff 200 backpacks full of supplies for kids K-12 through college to set them up for a successful school year.
Paper, markers, erasers, and more are going into these backpacks for students in their programs — all a part of Youth Villages' "Backpack Heroes" initiative.
Representative Taylor Santos says, "We know that the start of the school year can be a time of a lot of stress, a lot of transition, especially for our families that are included in our programs — because they are experiencing a lot of stressors and a lot of barriers to accomplishing goals. So, this should be an exciting time for them. So, we like to collect these supplies, and pack these backpacks so that we can take that stress off of them and so it can be an exciting pleasant experience for them."
These packs will go to families and kids some who've experienced trauma, emotional and behavioral health issues. This initiative relies heavily on donations, and this year, Southern Christian Church in Louisville donated $5,000, which covered the cost of all of this year’s backpacks and supplies.
Santos says, "You know our families are under-resourced and they don't have the funds, they don't have the transportation — that can be a lot of stress for a kiddo, which can also cause them to have some maybe challenging behaviors in the home and we just don't want that."
This representative says that while they're packing enough bags for kids in their two programs now, they say there's no cap on the families they're working to help. They say that they're hoping to expand the program to help more Kentuckians.
Santos says, "There will never be a cap. The cap is gonna be about the amount of young people who we're serving at a given time. So right now, like we're serving Paducah, Lexington, Louisville, and Bowling Green, in a 60-mile radius. But we're gonna be adding more regions, and so there's always gonna be this need for more backpacks to be packed throughout the state."
Youth Villages representatives also want people in the community to know they'll have a gift drive over the holiday season. They say for more ways to donate and volunteer, people can check out their website.
