Discover Card gives local schools backpacks and supplies
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Discover Card employees gave out new backpacks and school supplies to Oquirrh Hills, Fox Hills and Silver Hills Elementary students shortly after school started. Pictured are Fox Hills sixth graders Kimberly Beesinger, Angela Pham and Abbigail Slade; and their sixth grade class, proudly displaying their new backpacks.
Students at Silver Hills, Oquirrh Hills and Fox Hills Elementary Schools received more then just a handout when Discover Card Financial Services employees gave them backpacks loaded with school supplies at the beginning of the school year-- they got a hand-up that will help them succeed now and in the future.
"[Discover's donation] provided resources to help them learn," said Mary Yannias, business development coordinator for the Granite Education Foundation's Adopt-a-School program. Discover also provided a positive community role model to the students that will help "inspire the new generation to become something," she said.
About 15 Discover Card employees visited each school and gave out the backpacks in person. Every student in each school got to choose the color and style he or she wanted.
"They were so happy," Fox Hills Principal Lynn Cooper said.
Anticipation reached high levels at Fox Hills on Aug. 29, as students could see the backpacks in the school's multipurpose room for a while before they were given out.
"They were so excited about the backpacks, and the fact that they could pick their own," Cooper said.
About 65 per cent of Fox Hill's 850 students receive reduced-price lunches, so it is likely that quite a few of them would not have new backpacks and supplies if Discover had not donated them, he said.
"It probably helped [Oquirrh Hills'] parents a lot, too, especially if they felt they weren't able to provide that," Oquirrh Hills Principal Karen Marberger said.
Oquirrh Hills' 400-plus students also received their backpacks on Aug. 29, and enjoyed themselves just as much. One student even asked Marberger, "Do we get to keep them?" she said.
Discover Card's backpack program started when the company became a business partner to Jackling Elementary School a couple years ago. Discover wanted to do something extra for the students there, and Yannias suggested the backpacks because the Granite Education Foundation already gets so many requests for school supplies at this time of year, she said. The GEF works with many different organizations and businesses to provide for the needs of Granite families, from clothing to dental care to Christmas presents.
The backpack program went off so well with Jackling the first year, Discover Card expanded it to three schools last year, and five this year. Magna Elementary and Robert Frost Elementary in West Valley City also received backpacks this year.
