The Los Angeles Angels, through its Angels Baseball Foundation, hosted 800 local students at its annual Back 2 School event held at The Big A on July 23, as part of a campaign to provide them clothing and supplies in advance of the upcoming school year.
The 800 students arrived at Angel Stadium in Anaheim throughout the day to collect bags full of donated items, such as shoes, pens, pencils, papers, Angels clothing items and food from Melissa’s Produce. Students were also given the opportunity to sit in the dugout.
Angels Baseball Foundation partnered with San Diego County Credit Union, or SDCCU, and San Clemente-based Oggi’s Pizza and Brewery Co. to collect donations from various Southern California locations as part of their Stuff the Bus campaign.
The Stuff the Bus campaign raises money to purchase filled backpacks and school supplies for students in need and experiencing homelessness, especially in central and north Orange County.
“The need is in Santa Ana, Anaheim, within all of Orange County, and we try to make sure that we’re reaching those kids,” Angels Chairman Dennis Kuhl told the Business Journal during the event.
Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula also made a financial contribution to the event to help pay for school supplies. Shoes were donated by Skechers.
Back 2 School hosted students from the Anaheim Family YMCA, Boys & Girls Club – Central Orange Coast, Boys & Girls Club – Huntington Valley, Easterseals Southern California, KidWorks, Project Access, Orange County Rescue Mission and Families Forward.
Last year’s SDCCU Stuff the Bus campaign collected $111,969 in San Diego County to fill 8,909 backpacks and buy more than 215,915 school supplies.
Angels players have attended the Back 2 School event in the past, but the team was in Queens, New York for an afternoon affair versus the New York Mets at Citi Field.
Financial details about this year’s Back 2 School event were not immediately available at press time.
See this week’s edition for more Philanthropy news.
