School Supply Drive 2026
Food Empowerment Project's
School Supply Drive
2026
Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.)’s annual School Supply Drive for the children of farm workers & migrants starts on Tuesday, July 14, and continues through Saturday, August 15. This year, we will be accepting monetary donations to buy the school supplies. We are also accepting donations of physical backpacks again this year.
There are two ways you can contribute this year:
Imagine starting the school year without a backpack, a notebook, or even a pencil. That’s the reality many children of farm workers and migrants face every fall, and it’s why we at Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) are so proud of our annual School Supply Drive.
A backpack with a child’s favorite TV show character on it. A pencil case featuring the newest pop star they look up to for representation. A notebook covered in the emojis they use everyday. These are not random items, they are a reflection of who a child is right now: their interests, their identity, and the sources of joy that help them feel confident as the school year begins.
These are the memories that shape a childhood, and it is how children begin the year feeling prepared not only with the tools for success, but with tools that represent them.
Your donation is a signal to these children that someone took the time to notice them.
This July, we will be accepting donations to purchase backpacks and school supplies for these young people—kids whose parents and grandparents earn so little that they often cannot afford to buy them the school supplies they require.
This year, due to the extreme political climate impacting migrant families across the U.S., we are excited to share that we are expanding our school supply drive to include farm worker families, and the children of migrant workers.
For thousands of farm worker and migrant families, the fear created by ICE kidnapping our neighbors has made back to school shopping no longer something they can count on. When families are living with constant worry, the joy of basic or higher education for their loved ones becomes fragile, and children and young people lose support when they need it the most.
This School Supply Drive is an opportunity to give back to the essential workers and migrant families who harvest the food we all eat, and strengthen our communities through the lives they build here. It is a way to thank them, and it’s a small step toward righting the injustices farm and migrant workers experience, including low wages, long hours, prolonged exposure to heat and agricultural chemicals, substandard housing, and smoke-related illnesses caused by wildfires.
As a vegan organization, F.E.P. promotes the consumption of more fruits and vegetables. But unless you grow your own produce, you rely on these essential workers to provide nutritious foods.
Will you help us support these families?
There are two ways you can contribute this year:
- Donate. Simply visit our donation page, contribute any amount, and we’ll use those funds to buy supplies for the kids. (Every dollar helps, but $25 will buy one backpack and $300 will provide five backpacks filled with school supplies.)
- Ship backpacks directly to:
Food Empowerment Project
P.O. Box 15167
Sacramento, CA 95851
Please note that all donated backpacks must be new and unused! No red, blue, or camo-colored backpacks, please.
Monetary gifts and contributions of backpacks will be accepted from July 14 through August 15.
- (Note that we are not accepting donations of any school supplies this year. We will purchase paper, pens, rulers, folders, etc., with monetary donations.)
Because of generous supporters like you, this event continues to be one of F.E.P.’s most popular and successful initiatives, and over the last 13 years we have been able to donate thousands of backpacks lovingly filled with the supplies that families have told us are indispensable to their children’s education.
We are proud to be partnering with multiple contacts to serve farm worker and migrant communities this year. Backpacks filled with school supplies will be going to farm workers in the Central Valley of California who pick our strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and vegetables, and to migrant families impacted by ICE presence in the Sacramento area.
Can we count on your generosity this year? The joy it will bring to these children, their parents, and their grandparents is priceless.
Thank you again for being a valuable member of F.E.P.’s support community and for your investment in our mission.
With much appreciation,
The Food Empowerment Project Team
P.S. Last year, you showed up for the children of farm workers, and we broke our record for the most School Supply Drive donations in our organization’s history! Let’s break that record again! Donate today to stand in solidarity with the communities who labor our food and make our communities stronger.