Hundreds gathered at Target Center on Thursday for the ninth annual Action Day initiative. The day is all about providing school supplies for kids K-12.
"We bring all kinds of community members together to pack backpacks for kids going back to school ," John Wilgers CEO of Greater Twin Cities United Way said.
And by the end of the day, they'll have packed 47,000 backpacks.
"47,000 is a lot of backpacks, and yet we know one in 10 kids in the Twin Cities get ready to go back to school without the supplies they need," Wilgers explained. "That equates to almost 100,000 kids."
It's not just about school supplies either.
"It's a sense of belonging we're able to give them and really, it's a sense of confidence," he adds.
This is the ninth straight year the Greater Twin Cities United Way has partnered with Minnesota sports teams to stuff backpacks with the essentials for kids K-through 12.
"The cost of food, the cost of housing, the cost of clothing, you know, everything has gone up," says Wilgers. "And so families have to make tough decisions about what they're going to spend that money on. And like you said, school supplies are expensive and frequently school supplies don't make the cut."
Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota Lynx and Target helped partner with the United Way for the event.
According to the 2019 Huntington Backpack Index, parents can expect to pay anywhere from $110 to over $300 per year per child for school supplies.