By China Boynton
Local businesses came together on August 19 to give away food, backpacks, and school supplies at Apollo Park. This year’s event started at 10 a.m. when cars lined up to receive food distributed by Farm Share Food Bank. Over 500 families were fed while Humana offered health advice and Demesmin and Dover were on hand for free legal advice.
Many sponsors came out to show their support like 99 Jamz’ DJ Gee Smoove who came out and spun records for the crowd while footwear retailer DTLR showed up and handed out shoes. Volunteers from First Class Promotions handed out backpacks while children enjoyed a bounce house and snow cones.
“It’s a pleasure for us to give back to the community it’s in our nature, our parents set down the grass roots, so we are taking the baton and we’re running with it,” said Joselyn Jackson, Public Relations Specialist for First Class Promotions.
Jessica Williams who is the founder of South Promo coordinated the event with her team that originally wanted to hand out 700 backpacks filled with school supplies, but after word got out about this year’s drive that number swiftly increased to 1,200 backpacks.
“This is the fourth year that we’ve done the backpack giveaway for back to school and every year we do the backpack drive it gets bigger and better,” Williams said.
Along with backpacks this year’s drive also featured barbers giving free haircuts, face painting and Florida Panthers tickets were part of a raffle along with three laptops donated by Albert Gibbs and the Leadership Academy.
“What we are focused on is technology, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and leadership and we use mentoring as a catalyst to reach the children in the community,” said CEO and founder of The AG Leadership Academy Albert Gibbs.
“Our personal belief is that technology is the great equalizer for the black community so that’s why we decided to donate three laptops to the community at this event, along with our time as well.”
People showed up despite the weather.
“We are especially excited about helping families with multiple children because the school supply list doesn’t get any shorter,” Williams said.
Williams is already excited for next year’s school drive where she’s hoping to move to a bigger park and offer health screenings for the children as well as uniforms.
For more information on how you can help visit southpromo.com or call 954–560–4812
