Mujeres de Colores will be providing backpacks filled with grade-appropriate school supplies to those in need from noon to 3 p.m. Aug. 9 during a community-wide block party at the United Way of Larimer County’s Community Impact Center, 525 W. Oak St., in Fort Collins.
About 300 backpacks will be available for students entering kindergarten through 12th grade, said Betty Aragon-Mitotes, founder and president of Mujeres de Colores. Students must be present to receive backpacks, which will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.
The block party, which will include food, games, free haircuts and dunk tanks featuring Mayor Jeni Arndt and other city council members, begins at 11 a.m. Co-sponsors include the United Way Community Impact Center and city of Fort Collins’ Neighborhood Night Out program, Aragon-Mitotes said.
Backpack distribution will begin at noon. It’s “open to anyone who needs help,” Aragon-Mitotes said.
Mujeres de Colores is a nonprofit organization “dedicated to supporting individuals, working class, and low-income families through children’s programs and Hispanic cultural education,” according to the mission statement on its website. It has distributed backpacks with school supplies to students in and around Fort Collins for the past 17 years through donations from local businesses and community members, Aragon-Mitotes told the Coloradoan on Aug. 7.
“When you compound the cost of the backpack, the school supplies, then compound clothes and shoes for kids going back to school, that adds up big time,” Aragon-Mitotes said. “And if people are on tight incomes already, that really makes it stressful, and it shouldn’t have to be that way.”
Coloradoan reporter Kelly Lyell can be reached at KellyLyell@coloradoan.com. Follow him on x.com/KellyLyell, threads.net/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news
