Lucas* is starting kindergarten this year, and he is the kind of kid who calls a thing before it happens. When he pulled his new backpack out at our Clubhouse in downtown Stockton and saw Messi on the front, he turned straight around to his family.

"See Mom and Dad, I told you he was gonna get me the Messi backpack."

He was right, and he was right for a reason. Chad is our newest Friend (paid, professional mentor), and Lucas already knows him well enough to predict him. That kind of certainty does not take years. It takes someone showing up on purpose, week after week.

A few feet away, Jennifer* opened hers and found something she had not seen coming.

"Oh my, it's PINK, and it's got HEADPHONES. This is the greatest backpack ever, and it's Hello Kitty."

Jennifer is starting kindergarten too. Her Friend, Crystal, picked that one out for her.

Every backpack in the room worked that way, one person choosing for one child. Our Friends receive a monthly stipend for the youth they support, and over the summer Crystal, Tyerell, and Chad each spent a portion of theirs on backpacks, supplies, and clothes, one child at a time.

Caregivers and siblings came too. After the backpacks and supplies, caregivers received bags of school clothes to take home. Then the youth spread out for art projects and decorated water bottles to carry to class, talking with their Friends about the year ahead.

This is where our two-generation approach turns into something you can hold. A backpack a child is proud of is also a cost a caregiver did not have to absorb in a month full of them. Caregivers are doing the hardest work here, and a Friend is someone steady alongside them.

The backpacks are headed somewhere specific. School is part of what a Friend does, not a separate program. As the year gets going, Friends begin showing up in classrooms alongside the youth they support, getting to know teachers and school staff, and staying in touch with caregivers about what is working at home and at school.

For a child who is four, five, or six years old, that growth looks ordinary from the outside. Learning that school is a place where someone knows your name. Getting through a whole morning. Coming back the next day. Those are the wins we are counting right now, and they are the ones a Friend is there for, week after week, for the next 12+ years, no matter what.

Friends of the Children – Stockton is a growing chapter, and every backpack in that room was possible because someone here decided to help build this. If you want the next group of children to walk into a first day carrying something chosen just for them, your gift is what makes it possible.

*names changed