Back to School Bash at Bayfront Festival Park

DULUTH, Minn. — Backpacks, burgers, and bouncy houses lined the grounds of Bayfront Festival Park on Monday.

It was all to give kids the opportunity to receive necessities for the upcoming school year. The event is put on by the Duluth School District and Neighborhood Youth Services. 70+ vendors gathered to give out advice and school supplies. Many look forward to this event and the positive impact it has on those in the community who may be struggling to make ends meet.

“We’ve been doing this for a whole, since the middle of covid, and when the kids were getting ready to go back to school, we were just looking for a way to get them plugged in the right way, we know a lot of parents were coming off of not having jobs, or not really making a lot of money, so just to take some of the burden off of them, we decided to look up that list for ISD 709, and we got close to 1500-2000 bags, all filled with school supplies that are age-appropriate, and we’re doing haircuts, hair braiding, styling, there’s free food, there’s about 70 vendors out here, so there’s a lot going on,” said Pez Davila, Director of Community Engagement, NYS.

You can find out more about Neighborhood Youth Services and what they have to offer the Northland on their Facebook page.