Francis C. Hammond Middle School received a donation of 500 new backpacks today, which will be stuffed with school supplies for when students return for the 2026-2027 school year.
United Way National Capital Area and Enterprise Mobility donated the backpacks to the Title I school. United Way’s global headquarters are located in Alexandria.
Principal Anika Buster-Singleton said that the donation takes away pressure from families struggling to pay bills.
“Because of your donation, we can ensure that we continue with our mission here in Alexandria City Public Schools, and that is to nurture, educate and inspire our students,” Buster-Singleton said. “We also know, even though we give skills and concepts, they need the tools in order to be successful, and these are the tools.”
Nicole Cooper, United Way’s chief external affairs and transformation officer, said that the nonprofit’s partnership with Alexandria City Public Schools has provided more than 4,000 backpacks to the West End school since 2017.
“We too are concerned that families have to choose … between whether or not to buy food and to buy school supplies,” Cooper said. “That is a wrong choice. So, today we’re helping some of these families to not have to make that choice.”
ACPS Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt thanked the donors.
“Not only do we want to give [students] that academic experience, we want to give them the experience of community, and that’s what you’re doing and building today,” Kay-Wyatt said.
Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley said that the table with hundreds of backpacks intended for children made her think of the individual kids who will use them next year.
“There’s going to be a young Pashto speaker who will have this backpack, and another family who just emigrated here from another place in the country, and a military family, or the first person in their family who will go to college,” Bagley said. “And I love picturing what these bags are gonna look like in a year, right? Because right now they’re fairly uniform, and in a year there’s gonna be stickers and buttons and laces and things hanging from them, and they’re going to have the imprint of each of these special and unique individuals whose lives are changing everyday.”
