COTS Back to School Bonanza was a hit!

Children are often the unseen faces of homelessness, but they make up a large portion of people experiencing homelessness. In one night in 2025, nearly 20% of people experiencing homelessness were children (2025 PIT count).

In 2015, COTS started the Back to School Drive to bring awareness to the children in our community experiencing homelessness, and to help them get the supplies they need to be successful in school. Each year since, the community helps us fill hundreds of backpacks with thousands of school supplies for us to distribute to families in shelters, motels, and to our nonprofit partners in the community who directly serve children.

In 2022 we wanted to serve students who are not necessarily connected to a service provider. We wanted to set them up for a successful year, both physically and emotionally. We wanted to maintain dignity. At a time in some of their lives where there isn’t a lot of choice, our goal was to let students be able to choose their own school supplies, pick out some clothing that starts them off on the right foot, and get haircuts to alleviate some of those first day jitters. The Back to School Bonanza was born. A free community event where any Vermont students, grades K-12, who are in need can come de-stress and have fun while they pick out school supplies and a backpack as well as first day of school outfits. 

This year, the fourth year running, with your help we were able to provide hundreds of students with new backpacks and school supplies in a fun environment. Each student received a great abundance of supplies and a backpack to feel set for the school year. 

On top of the hundreds of school supplies and backpacks, we provided scores of first day of school outfits, thousands of jumps on the bounce house, heaps of The Scoop ice cream cones, loads of blue snow cone smiles, several haircuts, a magnitude of magical WOW’s, tons of tacos, plenty of of family portraits, and even more. 

There were also many connections to community partners made. Fern Lab, Girls on the Run, Girl Scouts, Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity, Howard Center, Lund, NAMI, Office of Child Support, and STEPS joined us. Feeding Champlain Valley provided bagged lunch. Fletcher Free Library and CLiF provided books for young readers!

Concessions by The Scoop Ice cream truck and Emily's Home Cooking. Haircuts by Hirka Haircraft, and Rosemary.

Leonardo's Pizza donated pizzas to our volunteers!

Stephen Mease donated their time and skill to take photographs.

Thank you to our sponsors: Katie’s Kids Foundation and Northfield Savings Bank. Thank you to our 60 volunteers who made this event possible, and our amazing COTS staff. Thank you to our community of supporters! We couldn’t do it without you!

Photos by Stephen Mease. More photos can be found here.