330 Beaumont Students To Get Backpacks With Supplies From Amazon Grant

BEAUMONT, CA — In the coming weeks, elementary and middle school students in Beaumont will be getting brown boxes with the iconic Amazon smile. Inside, they'll find new backpacks filled with pencils, rulers, crayons, notebooks and more thanks to a community grant from Amazon.

Boxes were filled at a local Amazon Fulfillment Center last week, where Beaumont Unified School District's boardroom and volunteer employees from the Amazon warehouse rolled up their sleeves and set up an assembly line.

Together, they filled 330 backpacks with some 1,980 school supplies. Within 40 minutes, volunteers had boxed the newly filled backpacks, which will be distributed over the next few weeks.

The school district's Student Attendance Technician Edgar Garcia applied for the grant from Amazon. Then, he worked in partnership with Keith Kevozma, the general manager of Beaumont's Amazon warehouse to organize the volunteer assembly line.

"We are deeply committed to ensuring that students receive an equitable education
and these backpacks are one of many ways we can support our families,” Garcia said in a news release from the district.

Sonia Saenz, who has worked for Amazon for 10 years, was among the volunteers filling and boxing backpacks.

“I have four kids in the [Beaumont Unified School District] and I know what it is like to strugglewith kids not always being able to get the supplies they need."

Fellow Amazon employee April Hawthorne, who also volunteered last week, said she grew up in Beaumont.

"I grew up where I didn’t have a lot of privilege. And I know in the community there are other people in the same predicament," she said.