GREAT FALLS — The Great Falls Rescue Mission is gearing up for its annual Back to School Rally. For this school year, their goal is to provide 750 backpacks filled with school supplies to youth in need in the community.
Each year, they adjust this number based on the needs of the community, and one year gave away roughly 1,200 backpacks.
This year’s rally will be on Sunday, August 22nd from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in front of the Cameron Family Center of the Great Falls Rescue facility on 2nd Avenue South, between 4th and 5th streets.
The event will include a free to-go lunch, short program, and games. Typically the event is a day full of fun with music and inflatable play centers, but with a rise of Delta variant Covid cases, the Great Falls Rescue Mission has decided to take the steps they feel necessary to keep the community safe.
To receive a backpack and school supplies, families will need to register at Opportunities Inc. located at 1123 Central Avenue in Great Falls before the deadline on August 11th.
To successfully accomplish the back to school rally the Great Falls rescue mission is asking for school supply donations and volunteers to help fill the backpacks before the event.
School supplies can be dropped off at the Great Falls Rescue Mission’s Administrative Office on the East side of the building, at 408 2nd Avenue South.
Supplies needed include:
- Solid colored backpacks
- 3-ring zippered binders
- College ruled spiral notebooks
- College ruled loose leaf paper
- Composition notebooks
- Pocket folders
- Dry erase markers (black)
- Highlighters
- #2 pencils
- Colored pencils
- Glue sticks
- Pencil boxes
- Pencil pouches (plastic for binders)
- Scissors
People can also order school supplies on Amazon and have them shipped directly to the Great Falls Rescue Mission by clicking here.
During the week before the rally, August 16th-20th, the Great Falls Rescue Mission will be asking for volunteers to help fill the backpacks with the school supplies.
“The week of the 16th through the 20th, we will have different schedules set up to work in the basement of this building, where we put all the school supplies out on tables and we take the kids that have registered and if they’re a fourth-grader, we have a listing of what the school district says a fourth-grader needs, and they go through and they shop for the different things, put it in the backpack, put their name on it and get it ready to go for the thing,” said Jim McCormick, Great Falls Rescue Mission director.
Volunteers will also be needed for the Back to School Rally on August 22nd.
To sign up to become a volunteer for the Back to School Rally, you can call Molly McGonigal at 406-761-2653.
