Amazon donates hundreds of filled backpacks to Joplin Schools

JOPLIN, Mo. — Hundreds of kids in the Joplin School District will now have a new backpack thanks to one of the world’s largest companies. It’s not unusual for items to be delivered to the Memorial Education Center from the Amazon warehouse in Joplin.

But in this case, no one at the center ordered anything. Hundreds of backpacks delivered by the company were delivered to the Joplin Bright Futures office, free of charge, courtesy of the Corporate Office. Amazon donated a total of 500 backpacks almost all of them are filled with back-to-school items.

And no one was more surprised and excited than Amanda Stone.

“This is going to be huge,” said Amanda Stone, Community Engagement Coordinator.

And even though no money changed hands, Kaleb Bratcher and his employees got something in return that money can’t buy.

“You get the privilege to you know donate and give back to your community and that’s where a bigger company it’s kind of nice, because a lot of companies will kind of focus on what they need to, but Amazon really wants to focus on community development. So it’s really nice to have that and help out with the students and you know, they won’t know it comes from Amazon, but we will,” said Kaleb Bratcher, Amazon Area Manager.

“The community support is amazing and sometimes um someone will let us know that their business has been collecting school supplies for us, or with this one, we’ve been talking to Amazon about partnering with us and they came in huge with this,” said Stone.

Coupled with backpacks already on hand from other donations, Stone thinks this will allow almost every student in the district that can’t afford to buy a new backpack and school supplies, will get one.

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