Blessings and Books and Backpacks Oh My!

This week, I had the pleasure of going on a PR Firm Trip with Ohio Northern’s PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America) to Fort Wayne, Indiana. We explored five different companies, including Vera Bradley. I think that visiting Vera Bradley was probably my favorite. I really could have seen myself working for them or a different company like them in the future. One of my favorite things that they talked about during our visit was their affiliation with the organization called Blessings in a Backpack.        

Blessings in a Backpack works with different schools and helps kids in need. Vera Bradley makes two different patterns, one for boys and one for girls, and donates backpacks to these schools. This back-to-school season, Vera Bradley helped to donate 25,000 backpacks to kids in need through Blessings in a Backpack. The schools help distribute them to the kids and on Friday’s, faculty, volunteers, and whoever else help to fill these backpacks with mostly food items for the kids to have access to over the weekend. Not all children have access to healthy food or even enough food in general over the weekend or breaks. Blessings in a Backpack try to help make sure that they do. They want to make sure the kids do not go hungry and have the energy to do their best at all of their schoolwork. The goal is to make sure the kids don’t go a day without food, which will help them be academically successful.

The school that I went to certainly could have benefitted from a program like this. I think that a lot of schools have maybe a similar smaller scaled program in place, but if more people and companies, like Vera Bradley would just donate some of their time and or their money to an organization like Blessings in a Backpack, there would be less kids going hungry and more scholarly productivity. I think that from a public relations aspect Vera Bradley is so smart for joining in on this. Their products include backpacks and they get to help so many people in the process. It gives them good press and something good to get behind. Everyone at Vera Bradley is very philanthropic and it is just a really nice thing to see. They all aren’t about work all the time. They like to give back to many different organizations and groups that need it. I think that it was very good that they stressed that to us on our trip. I can say that it is a very appealing aspect of working for a certain company. If you want to learn more about Vera Bradley and it’s partnership with Blessings in a Backpack or just about Blessings in a Backpack in general, feel free to visit either of these websites. 

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vera-bradley-partners-with-blessings-in-a-backpack-to-donate-25-000-backpacks-for-back-to-school-season-300696960.html

https://www.blessingsinabackpack.org/