The Back Pack project appeals to schools to fill backpacks with basic educational material to send to children receiving Mary's Meals. Most of the children who benefit from Mary's Meals and the Back Packs have suffered war, poverty, famine or natural disaster.

READ THE LATEST UPDATE FROM THE MARY'S MEALS USA BACKPACK PROJECT HERE

Very often families cannot afford to buy basic things like pencils and copy books, or even suitable clothes for their children to wear to school. And so their children miss out on school and an education. This is a tragic situation because studies show that an education is the best way a chronically poor child can escape from poverty in later life.

Vital education supplies
The Back Pack Project helps solve this problem by providing poor children with the things they need in school. It does this by inviting pupils here to fill up an old school bag/back pack with some everyday school things. These bags will then be given out to children who really need them. The Back Pack Project has sent over 120,000 backpacks to some of the poorest children in the world: they have been sent to Haiti, Malawi, Uganda, Liberia, Romania and DR Congo.

A low cost way to give
In order to speed up the distribution of the backpacks on arrival, it is a great help if schools sort the backpacks before sending them to us. If possible, bags should be sorted to contain one of each of the items listed, then marked with a label giving a rough age range, and whether it is suitable for a girl or boy.

To ensure they have spares to supplement the backpacks, we encourage you to give any surplus items in boxes marked "Extras". If you are unable to sort the packs yourself, please just mark the bag as unsorted and we will make sure it is checked before distribution. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Get involved
The Back Pack Project is proving to be another effective way of helping children get to school. If your school is interested in participating or if you would like more more information, then please email