Cars lined up at the DuPage County Fairgrounds on Wednesday for an annual back-to-school tradition hosted by the Catholic Charities Diocese of Joliet.
DuPage County Back to School Fair
The DuPage County Back to School Fair was launched more than three decades ago to help low-income families in DuPage County secure school supplies.
“34 years ago, a group got together and tried to come up with a way in which they could give back to the community to ensure that children had a great start back to school,” said Back to School Fair Coordinator, Amy Lambert.
The program aims to provide basic supplies and more to those in need.
“Each registered family will receive a backpack coordinating with their children’s grade. We serve children kindergarten through 12th grade. Along with that backpack and school supplies, they will also receive a food bag from a mobile food pantry that has some shelf-stable foods that hopefully the families will use for their children’s upcoming school lunches,” said Lambert.
More than one-thousand families get supplies
More than 3,000 backpacks and 900 goodie bags of food were handed out during the event to over one thousand low-income families.
“There was a real need in DuPage County, although it seemed to be one of the more affluent counties. But there still is a need for DuPage County is quite vast and covers very many cities,” said Lambert.
Tradition to continue
As the families drive away now ready for the upcoming school year, Catholic Charities is excited to have played a part. It’s a tradition they hope to carry on for years to come.
“Our plan is definitely to continue with the back-to-school fair, and I want to give a big thanks to all of our donors because we couldn’t make it possible without them, because we do operate on donations for the fair,” said Lambert.
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