Back to School picnic gives away over 300 school supplies

MONONA, Wis. (WMTV) - A Back to School picnic in Monona Saturday helped connect families with free school supplies, giving away over 300 items. Those included backpacks, notebooks, calculators, folders and many other classroom essentials.

“Some for the girls, some for the boys. Our backpacks were to die for,” laughed Latonya Jackson, who helped coordinate the event.

Jackson is the founder of Waiting to Exhale Events, which organized the picnic. Waiting to Exhale Events is a nonprofit started back in February with the goal of empowering and connecting women. Jackson said they wanted to hold an event that would also benefit kids and families as the new school year gets underway.

“Our women are mothers, they’re daughters, they’re businesswomen, they’re caregivers, so what better way to give back to them by giving back to the kids?” she explained.

Waiting to Exhale Events contributed some of the supplies themselves, but the rest were donations from retailers and individuals. Jackson said the supplies disappeared before she knew it.

“For us to be so small and just starting, the donations [were] tremendous, and then at that, for them to trust us to do this and we had an amazing outcome,” she said.

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