Backpacks & Birthdays – Worcester, MA

2020 will be Simon Says Give – Worcester’s fourth year of kids celebrating kids! Our chapter does that in two ways to serve our city: Providing graduating elementary school students in Worcester backpacks, binders, and ALL the supplies they need for middle school and giving birthday parties to kids ages 5-12 who wouldn’t have one otherwise (we either host the parties or provide birthdays in a box, which includes EVERYTHING from gifts of need and fun to goody bags to decorations to a customized cake from our favorite bakery in town: The Queen’s Cups!). Since 2017, we have delivered more than 1500+ backpacks (worth an average of $70 at retail), celebrated 125 kids, and generated more than 2,000 youth volunteer service hours from more than 160 different kids ages 4-17. Even in 2020 we will equal the number of backpacks and birthdays we did in 2019.

We work directly with families to personalize our birthdays and with the Worcester Public Schools to personalize our backpacks for each of the six middle school lists. We also strive to present as many backpacks directly tot he students. In 2018, at the request of the teachers and the schools, we added Case-It binders to the backpacks. These binders are the best on the market but cost $20 or more at retail. The students love them!

Our Worcester, MA Chapter launched High Five for Supplies in June 2017 with the help of Simon Says Give founder Mandi Simon and South Dakota President Nolan Fleming! Watch the story here: