United Way of New York City’s Build-a-Backpack Drive Successfully Equips Over 2,900 NYC Students for Back-to-School Season

United Way of New York City's Build-a-Backpack Drive Successfully Equips Over 2,900 NYC Students for Back-to-School Season

Sep 11, 2025| Blog, Blog Featured Articles, Education Equity, Impact, News, News Featured Articles, Partners

NEW YORK CITY (September 11, 2025) -- United Way of New York City (UWNYC) announced today the successful conclusion of its 2025 Build-A-Backpack Drive, resulting in the donation of over 2,900 backpacks, including for the first time donations of specialized high-school supplies. This annual community-wide effort supports students across New York City as they prepare for the school year. With the dedication and generosity of 337 corporate partner volunteers and donors, the donated backpacks were filled with essential school supplies and distributed to students in need via 18 community-based organizations located throughout the five boroughs.

As the cost of basics-housing, food, childcare, transportation, and health care-have more than doubled over the last 15 years, wages have stagnated, creating a dangerous environment where parents are forced to choose between providing school supplies to their children and paying other essential expenses like rent and grocery bills. Basic living costs for a family of four in New York City now range from nearly $5,000 to $8,500 a month.

The Build-A-Backpack Drive is a cornerstone of UWNYC's commitment to addressing educational disparities and ensuring that every child in New York City has the tools needed for success. UWNYC aims to mobilize corporate volunteers and partner with community-based organizations to ease this burden for families and help students start the school year with everything they need to succeed. This aligns with their mission to unite community power with citywide possibility, meeting today's most urgent needs while building transformative solutions for tomorrow.

Elementary-age backpacks included three notebooks and folders, pencils, a pencil case, crayons, markers, erasers, sharpener, scissors, glue sticks, hand sanitizer, and a tissue pack.

Additionally, this year, for the first time, UWNYC provided specialized supplies to high schools through the High School Backpack Drive Pilot, which provides students with essential academic tools often overlooked in traditional donation campaigns. Each backpack included a graphing calculator, headphones, and a geometry kit-items that are critical for high school success but are often financially out of reach for many families.

These supplies address real and pressing challenges in the classroom. Graphing calculators, which can cost over $100, are required for homework, classwork, and state exams. Headphones are essential in today's classrooms, where students are learning at different academic levels or are English language learners. Geometry kits support students in developing spatial awareness and problem-solving skills-both crucial for academic achievement. By addressing these specific gaps, the high school backpack drive pilot is an investment in academic readiness and long-term student success.

Through this specific backpack drive pilot program, UWNYC also delivered 200 backpacks to the Women's Academy of Excellence, a single gender, public, uniformed learning environment aimed at creating a community of lifelong learners, where students' intellectual curiosity and creativity is nurtured, and their developmental needs as teenagers are met to their individual satisfaction.

"Our backpack drive is more than just school supplies; it's a manifestation of our commitment to our children. Studies show that when students are more prepared for school they perform better academically and are more equipped for future civic and economic engagement as adults. This is the power of philanthropy. When we invest in our children, we invest in our future by empowering them with the confidence, dignity, and ability to succeed," said Melissa Browne, SVP, Chief Development Officer at UWNYC. "I am deeply grateful to our partners for joining us in this important initiative."

Over the course of the summer, a variety of corporate partners hosted backpack-packing events where employee volunteers assembled kits specific to the needs of students from underserved communities. Curated with input from teachers at partner schools and districts, the kits included everything from notebooks and pens to personal hygiene products to ensure students were fully equipped for a successful academic year.

"For us it's about progress with purpose, and that is using our expertise to strengthen the communities that we operate in," said Ed Sebold, General Counsel at Kyndryl. "It makes me feel tremendously proud that our folks would step forward for three years in a row to give people a running start for the school year and to help at the grassroots level to build the next generation of talent."

The Build-A-Backpack events took place at various corporate partner locations, including:

• CIBC
• David Yurman
• Deloitte
• Eli Lilly and Company
• Ernst & Young LLP (EY US)
• Gibson Dunn
• KKR & Co, Inc.
• Kyndryl
• S&P Global Market Intelligence
• UPS
• Ware Malcomb
• Widow Jane/Heaven Hill Distillery
• Others

The backpacks were then distributed to students through 18 community partner organizations.

For more information about UWNYC and how to get involved, please visit unitedwaynyc.org.

About United Way of New York City
For 87 years, United Way of New York City has been a force multiplier for good. We work at the intersection of government, private, and public partners to positively affect our communities, maximizing impact by coordinating and aligning service providers, companies, local government and New Yorkers to help people eliminate barriers and gain the agency to improve their lives for the better.