The charitable organization, Help4Kids, is seeking community support through donations for its Backpack Buddies program. This initiative comes in response to Horry County Schools’ new policy that requires students to use clear backpacks, effective from the 2024-25 school year.
Barb Mains, the founder of Help4Kids, pinpointed the urgent requirement for clear backpacks in the local community following the new policy’s introduction. Help4Kids now faces the significant task of replacing all 3,000 traditional backpacks they have with clear ones. “All of a sudden, they all have to have clear backpacks, so we have to replace all 3,000 backpacks that they had so far with clear ones”, stated Mains.
Since the announcement, the charity has collected 10 clear backpacks, but their goal is considerably larger. They aim to gather enough stock to distribute across all schools within the county. The concerns of local families, unsure of how to afford and find the right transparent backpacks for their children, are one of the primary motivations behind Mains’ fundraising effort.
Parents like Justin Yarbrough have voiced their concerns about the new rules and questioned the practicality and additional expense. “What happens if they buy a backpack and the school says, ‘that’s not the right one,’ but then they spend $40 on a backpack. How are they going to spend another $40 on a backpack,” said Yarbrough.
Mains hopes the community will step up to help those in need by addressing this new need. “We hope that people will buy, if you just buy one clear backpack for a kid, you’ll be making a difference”, encouraged Mains. Horry County Schools has assured that families requiring assistance with this new mandate can seek resources from local schools. The clear backpack rule will be enforced starting from August, with allowances for small pouches for students’ personal belongings.
