BRHP 2024 Back To School Supply Drive: Fostering Student Success

Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership’s Housing Mobility Program serves over 4,300 families and approximately 8,000 children, helping these families move from areas of concentrated poverty to resource-rich communities in areas of opportunity. Many of the children in our program benefit not only from higher quality housing, but better health and access to robust educational opportunities with all of the lifelong benefits these improved resources provide. Studies consistently demonstrate that when families with young children move from high-poverty areas to resource-rich neighborhoods, their children end up having higher incomes and are less likely to live in high-poverty areas as adults.

Since 2020, BRHP has held a Back-to-School Supply Drive every August leading up to the new school year. With four years of successful events, we have recognized the ongoing need for and importance of school supplies for our families. This year, we organized our biggest Back-to-School Supply effort yet, raising over $10,000 in donations, and allocating an additional $12,000 from BRHP’s budget, to reach over 400 families with 858 backpacks full of supplies.

The Impact of Quality School Supplies

Access to school supplies at the beginning of the school year can have a profound impact on children and families, providing needed confidence and increasing engagement in school. At the same time, school supply costs have never been higher. The National Retail Federation, which has been conducting annual surveys on back-to-school consumer spending since 2003, expects back-to-school spending to reach $39B in 2024, a $13B increase from 2019. The expected spending per household for 2024 is $875, a $178 increase from 2019.

63% of students, or nearly 2 out of 3 children, arrive to school on the first day without the supplies they need.

Kids in Need Foundation – 2021 Impact Report

Without access to quality school supplies, students miss out on the benefits of fully participating in their school opportunities. In the 2021 Kids in Need Foundation Impact Report, based on data from interviews with over 10,000 public-school teachers across the country, educators reported that 63% of students, or nearly 2 out of 3 children, arrive to school on the first day without the supplies they need. Teachers in the study reported that in response to having access to needed school supply, students demonstrated an 87% increase in preparedness, 77% increase in in-class participation and a 70% increase in student confidence. In Maryland, data from The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF)’s 2024 Kids Count® Data Profile underscores the acute investment needed to support children in our state, with data showing 12% of Maryland children live in poverty and 30% live in a household with a high housing cost burden, making it more challenging for families to afford needed school items.

Providing quality school supplies not only has an impact on students, but on the teachers who educate them. Data from the Maryland State Education Association, which conducted a poll of 2800+ Maryland public school educators last year, found that 90% of Maryland educators have purchased school supplies out of their own pockets, up from 88 percent in 2019. In 2024, similar to the rise of U.S. household back-to-school spending, teachers throughout the country are projected to spend over $800 out of their own pockets on supplies for their classroom, based on information provided by the National Education Association, a labor union representing public school administration, teachers, faculty and staff. Helping families access the supplies they need also decreases this burden on our educators.

There is nothing that could have been done better, it (the supply drive) was right on time and definitely needed. Thank you BRHP.

Melody H., BRHP Housing Mobility Program Participant

Reinvesting in Our Communities

Our entire organization pulled together to sort and pack over 30,000 pounds of supplies, including about 100 children’s books, and transport them throughout the community. Thanks to this effort, we were able to provide families in our Housing Mobility Program with supplies designed to last them through the year at five different locations throughout our service area, helping ensure that families across the region were able to take advantage of the distribution.

This campaign would not have been possible without the libraries in our opportunity areas that opened their doors to us for supply distributions. We would like to thank the library branches that provided us space to distribute backpacks to families: Baltimore County Public Library – Owings Mills, Baltimore County Public Library – Towson, Anne Arundel County Public Library – Odenton Branch, and Howard County Public Library System – Central Branch; without the help and welcoming spaces these libraries provided, the community distribution would not have been possible.

As our campaign ends and schools start to open, we will be analyzing the feedback from BRHP families and finding ways to make an even more meaningful event next year. Thank you again to everyone who made this event a success and to our families, have a great, safe start to your school year!

Written by — Phillip Clark, Communications Associate