Record-Breaking Success for Back-to-School Drive
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
by: Michele Ignacio, A.O. Reed & Co.

Section: Committee Announcements




Assessing needs, creating and implementing plans, and delivering results are tasks that BOMA members are accustomed to performing at work.  When it comes to planning community service drives, these same skills are necessary to obtain a successful outcome.  Earlier this year, BOMA San Diego's Community Service committee met with Promises2kids and set a goal to collect 400 backpacks for the Annual Back-To-School Drive benefiting local foster youth. Melissa Villagomez, Annual Giving Coordinator from Promises2kids, reported that by the end of the Drive, BOMA San Diego had not only met their goal; they doubled it, and then some.

We are proud and delighted to share that our organization (including members, colleagues, clients, friends and family members) collected an astounding total of:
  • 962 backpacks
  • 100 lunch bags
  • 5,257 school supplies
  • Over $1,000 in cash donations
This is a record breaking year for our Organization. (To give you perspective, BOMA collected 386 backpacks, 35 lunch bags, and 2,224 school supplies in 2016.). Our success was due to the teamwork from start to finish, beginning at the committee level and ending with our members.  Principal and Associate members rallied and collected donations through various methods including tenant drives, writing letters to get donations from their respective companies, and by taking it to social media using their personal Facebook and Instagram pages to promote the Drive and gain support from people outside the BOMA group living as far as Texas and New York.
 
All donations collected at the August membership meeting were immediately delivered to the Promises2kids office where volunteers sorted, counted, and distributed stuffed backpacks to local foster youth that same week.  Promises2kids also sets aside an assortment of backpacks to keep on-hand at their office in case children, who enter the foster system mid-year, are unable to bring 
their own belongings with them. 

Thank you to all who contributed to the collection. Your participation and support mean the world to us, and even more to the hundreds of San Diego foster youth who began this school year with something that will carry them to success. A special thank you to big-time contributors A.O. Reed & Co.American Assets TrustCarleton ManagementElevator Constructors I.U.E.C. Local 18Give Something Back, and 
Thyssenkrupp Elevator.

For more information on Promises2kids, visit www.promises2kids.org.

To see more photos from the Drive, visit the BOMA San Diego Facebook Page.