West Palm Beach Back to School Blast
It’s true that together everyone achieves more. For the last two years, the Back To School Blast sponsored by Urban Youth Impact has reached families preparing for the upcoming school year by providing free haircuts, free school physicals and immunizations, free backpacks, a free kids carnival area, site entertainment and a free lunch. They have been able to reach and serve thousands of families in the West Palm Beach area.
This year Convoy of Hope and Urban Youth Impact, along with nearly 140 local churches and organizations, partnered together to reach over four thousand guests in Gaines Park, only one mile from the scene of a horrific gang related crime one year ago. The crime made the national news and a partnership was formed among the local churches to work together to bring the hope of Christ to their city. As the partnership was extended to Convoy of Hope, it was determined that bringing free groceries, a kids crusade, and a prayer tent where every guest could be prayed for, to the Back To School Blast was the first step in bringing Hope to hurting families.
One guest was distraught about her friend who was “living in squalor” and had a thirteen year old who was sleeping in the family’s bathtub because of fleas and extreme filth. This guest was facing problems due to the help she was giving her friend both financially and emotionally. As a volunteer prayed for her the peace of God calmed her fears and she felt the depression lift from her and she began to smile for the first time in a long time. She felt she had the strength to face the situation again.
A single mother who brought her children for the free backpacks expressed how grateful she was because she couldn’t afford school supplies this year. Another mother thanked God for the free haircuts her children received saying that she didn’t have the money to pay for her kids to get haircuts.
By the end of the day several of the nearly 800 volunteers were able to pray for and encourage over three thousand people before they received their bags of free groceries.