The United Way of Cass-Clay ended their backpack and school supply distribution a day early this summer.
President and CEO Sandi Piatz says the response was overwhelming.
"We were able to hand out all the backpacks on the first couple days, and so it's really great to see that success of the number of people coming through, and being able to hand out those backpacks. We achieved our goal, which we are really happy about. Now we'll go through, take a look at our learns and our numbers, and explore what the need will be for next year."
Piatz says they aimed to fill and distribute 7,000 backpacks this year, and they went just beyond that goal – passing out 7,025 backpacks. She also says they were able to distribute an additional 500 backpacks to Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo schools to be passed out later due to a partnership with this year’s Hero Sponsor, Essentia Health.
