A Back-to-School Crisis

Last year we gave book bags, this year the urgent need is food

A photo from our back-to-school mutual aid event last year.

It’s mid-September and the whole world feels like it’s happening on top of us. You know what I mean: the stack of news alerts, the country diving head first into fascism, the climate going haywire, the twenty tabs open in your head at once. You wake up already behind. You go to bed knowing tomorrow’s list will be longer. Everyone I talk to says they feel overwhelmed, maxed-out, as if basic life is an Olympic event nobody trained us for.

And yet. Even in all this static, I keep getting these messages. People writing to ask, What can I do? Where do I even begin? And the answer is never as cinematic as folks imagine. It’s rarely protest footage or the soaring speech in front of thousands. More often it’s here, in these unglamorous but crucial micro-acts of community.

A helping hand to a neighbor, a kindness for a stranger.

So I’ll get right to it: last year, with your help, we gave over 100 kids book bags filled with school supplies and books. That mattered. It was special. But 2025 has its own cruel physics. The price of milk is up. Rent is up. Eggs cost almost double what they did pre-pandemic. Families are making choices nobody should have to make: notebooks or dinner, pencils or cereal. This year, after speaking with our school partners, we’ve realized the urgent need is food. Many families in the schools we partner with simply don’t have enough money to make up the difference.

So we’re trying to raise $30,000 to give 300 families $100 grocery gift cards. And we’ve already scraped together $11,000, which is great but not enough.

Maybe you’re reading this and thinking, a $100 gift card won’t make much of a dent. But imagine 300 households where the fridge doesn’t echo when you open it. Imagine the simple relief of a parent who doesn’t have to skip meals so their kids can eat. Imagine a parent and child knowing that others see them and are willing to help.

That’s the dent.

Here’s the ask: donate three dollars. That’s it. Skip one coffee or one dessert on DoorDash. Three bucks. Our effort isn’t glamorous, it won’t go viral, but it’s how things get done.

We live in a time when the distance between despair and possibility feels razor-thin. The way through isn’t some grand gesture. It’s showing up for each other, again and again, in small ways that add up. That’s what community is. That’s what resistance looks like in the real world.

So: join us. Chip in. Share the link (wehavestories.org/back-to-school). Be part of the reason a kid can walk into school with a full belly and a little less worry at home.

Because these are the times we are in. And if we don’t hold each other close, who will?