Back-to-School with VRES

Our recent back-to-school donation drive was such a special day for our team. We loved getting to spend time with families in our community, meet the children, and help them get ready for the new school year.

One of our favourite parts of the day was seeing so many familiar faces. Many of the families who came to the event had first learned about VRES through other community programs. It was really nice to see people we had met before and have the chance to connect with them again. It was also great to meet new people who were hearing about VRES for the first time and share more about what we do. We are glad that our event reached people in the community who were looking for support and connected them with resources that could help.

We were touched by how kind everyone was throughout the day. The children were especially thoughtful and careful about taking only what they were allotted. It was really nice to see how considerate they were with the other families and with our team.

One moment we loved was watching a child run excitedly over to the books. He went straight for the largest encyclopedia we had and was so eager to pick it up and look through it. Seeing a child get that excited about a book was one of those moments that made us stop and appreciate what we were doing. We were able to put something into his hands that he was genuinely excited to learn from.

There were so many little moments like this throughout the day. Seeing children find something they were excited about, watching families look through the resources, and seeing our team get just as excited about finding something for each child made the whole event feel very special.

We loved looking through everything and trying to find things that we thought each child would like. It was exciting to see someone find a book or resource and immediately think about how much the kids would love it. We also enjoyed seeing the children’s reactions when they found something they were excited about. We loved when a young child proudly came up to our sign-in desk to let us know he was done shopping and show us everything he had picked out. It was such a sweet moment and a reminder of how much fun the day was for the kids.

Connecting with our community is about understanding the people we meet and what they need. We tried our best to accommodate everyone who came through our doors and make sure they left with something that would be useful to them.

We received such a wonderful response from everyone who attended, and honestly, we loved every minute of it.

We are also very grateful to our community partners who made an effort to help us get these donations to children in our community. We could not have put everything together without the support of the people and organizations who helped make the donations possible.

Most of all, we are grateful to the families who came out and spent the day with us. Seeing all of the children excited about their new books and school supplies was a wonderful reminder of why we do what we do.

It was a really special day for our team, and we are so happy we got to share it with our community.