What the Back2School Jam Gives All of Us

What is a backpack, anyway?

This week, I hugged my three children and sent them off to school with backpacks filled with school supplies, water bottles, and, in some ways, all their hopes and dreams for the year ahead.

The beginning of a school year is an important marker in a child's life. One child may be walking into kindergarten, suddenly feeling very grown up. Another is leaving elementary school behind for the brand-new world of middle school. Another is entering their final year of high school, beginning to ask much bigger questions: What comes next? Who am I becoming?

And through all of it, there is that backpack.

A child carries it every day as they go about one of the biggest jobs of childhood: learning and growing. Over the course of a year, it will hold pencils and homework, but also favorite books, awards, inside jokes with friends, and yes, sometimes those dreaded notes home to Mom and Dad.

A backpack is just a tool. But it travels with a child through an important season of becoming.

Maybe that is part of why the Back2School Jam has come to mean so much to me.

More Than 1,200 Backpacks

This August, Micah House once again partnered with the Redlands Police Department and an incredible network of community partners to host the Back2School Jam.

Together, our community donated more than 1,200 backpacks for local students. Hundreds of children came to choose a new backpack filled with school supplies, receive a free haircut, pick out books, eat, play, and connect their families with resources for the year ahead.

More than 30 community organizations, churches, nonprofits, businesses, and public agencies joined together to make it happen.

Our Micah House family at Trinity Evangelical Free Church showed up in force, giving backpacks and supplies and providing an incredible number of volunteers. But they weren't alone. First Congregational Church, First Baptist Church, Portrait Church, Fuente de Vida, and others joined in the work, alongside the Redlands Police and Fire Departments, City of Redlands, A.K. Smiley Public Library, University of Redlands, local nonprofits and businesses.

Different churches. Different organizations. Different groups of people.

One community, taking care of its own.

The People on the Other Side of the Backpack

After the Jam, I started counting our Micah House volunteers.

I counted the people who received and inventoried donations, stuffed backpacks, moved boxes, set up the event, helped children shop, restocked tables, and cleaned everything up when it was over.

More than 120 individual volunteers.

It takes a lot of hands to run this event.

And this year, I found myself paying attention to whose hands they were.

Whole families came to serve together. Young children and teenagers worked alongside their parents. Several Micah House teens volunteered throughout the process, preparing for and serving at an event designed to bless other young people in their own community. Teens from local churches served beside their parents. The Redlands High School Varsity Volleyball team came and worked alongside their coaches.

Others wrote handwritten notes to tuck inside the backpacks:

You're going to do great this year.

Believe in yourself.

You are loved.

Your community is cheering you on.

There is something beautiful about imagining a student opening a new backpack and discovering that note.

But there is also something beautiful happening to the person who writes it.

Serving Changes Us, Too

One mom who volunteered with her seventh-grade son sent me a message after the Jam. She told me that whenever she is around Micah House, she is reminded that this work is about more than backpacks and school supplies. It is about showing children and families that they are seen, valued, loved, and not forgotten.

She also told me about watching her son serve.

He stuffed backpacks, organized supplies, and added encouraging notes to high school bags. She said watching the excitement on his face as he served others melted her heart. She was grateful that he had the opportunity to feel like he was part of something bigger than himself.

I understand that feeling.

Because I want that for my children, too.

And I want it for the children of Micah House.

We spend a lot of time asking what our children need from their community. They need safe places. They need academic support. They need mentors and people who believe in them.

But our children also need opportunities to discover that they have something to give.

They need experiences that teach them to notice someone else's need and move toward it. To give their time. To carry a box. To stuff a backpack. To write a note to a child they've never met. To work alongside someone from a different church, a different generation, or a different part of town.

They need to learn the joy of serving.

That, too, is part of growing brighter futures.

A Community That Takes Care of Its Own

Of course, the stories on the receiving side of the Back2School Jam matter deeply.

There is the father of seven who has relied on the Jam for more than five years to help ease the financial burden of getting his children ready for school. There is the single mom of four, recently out of work because of a health issue, who still wants her children walking into their new classrooms excited and prepared.

They are why we do this.

But this year, I've been thinking just as much about what happens on the other side.

What happens to a seventh grader when he discovers that serving feels good? What happens when parents bring their children along to serve with them? When Micah House teens serve other students? When churches, businesses, nonprofits, police officers, librarians, retirees, teenagers, and families work side-by-side toward the same goal?

Community happens.

And perhaps more importantly, community is formed.

I have always loved Redlands. But after coordinating this year's Back2School Jam, I feel an even deeper gratitude and loyalty to this place.

I've watched people give money, backpacks, supplies, expertise, hours of their time, physical labor, and simple words of encouragement. I've watched people ask, "What do you still need?" and then show up ready to fill the gap.

I've watched a community take care of its own.

And it makes me want my children to grow up believing that this is simply what we do: when our neighbors need us, we show up.

I want the students of Micah House not only to grow up knowing that their community loved and invested in them, but eventually to become the people who turn around and invest in the children coming behind them.

Maybe that is one of the greatest gifts of the Back2School Jam.

Yes, we gave out backpacks.

But we also gave people an opportunity to practice generosity, compassion, service, and neighborliness.

We reminded children that their community sees them.

And we reminded ourselves what kind of community we want to be.

That is something worth carrying with us long after the backpacks have been unpacked.