Community members urged to donate school supplies for foster youth

There is still plenty of summer vacation left for students, but one local organization in Imperial Valley is already starting to collect school supplies for the school year.

IVROP Project ACE is holding their Back to School Supply Drive to help foster youth.

“We want to be able to provide a backpack with school supplies so that foster youth can have a better start this upcoming school year,” said Luis Torres, Program Manager with IVROP Project ACE.

Partnering with social services, IVROP is asking the community to help by donating school supplies by August 2nd.

“Usually the bigger items are the one that are in shorter supply, such as the backpacks, calculators, those are the things that are usually slower to come in,” added Torres.

Even the smallest gestures help, whether it be a notebook, or pencils and erasers.

With 150 to 200 foster youth in Imperial Valley, Torres says that this supply drive started off as something small, and he hopes to grow into something big.

“Every year we have improved on the donations we have, I’m open to any ideas where we can get businesses, local businesses, community programs, agencies that would like to partner. And if we could do a collection at all of these agencies, that would be great in the future,” said Torres.

Donations are accepted year around but IVROP pushes for heavy donations this time of year to help with the start of the school year.

“We are in El Centro Social Services Building, 2995 South 4th Street. And we are in suite 102. So they can bring it by, also if they are in a location and they would like for us to go by and pick them up, we can also go pick up the donations,” explained Torres.

The back to school supply drive benefits all foster youth throughout the Imperial Valley, for more information you can head to http://www.ivrop.org/.