This week St. Luke’s Adopt-a-Kindergartener program delivered 27 backpacks to Bucknell Elementary, and 10 to the United Community Early Learning Center. Teacher’s supplies, including paper towels, Kleenex and freezer bags, also were delivered to both schools.

Parents hit by economic upheaval have long considered each school a lifeline. The United Community Early Learning Center charges tuition on a sliding-fee scale based on household income. Bucknell is one of the county’s 41Title One schools, receiving extra federal funding because a large number of students come from lower-income households.

About 15 St. Lukers stuffed backpacks for the schools last Sunday. The congregation had purchased the kindergartener's and teacher's supplies on Amazon, using a “wishlist.” They purchased everything on this list, hundreds of items, including backpacks, lunch/snack boxes and 15 school supplies items that went into each backpack. Altogether, St. Lukers spent $2,045.

While Fairfax County is among the richest counties in the nation, based on its six-figure median household income, an estimated 31 percent of the county’s public school students qualified for free and reduced-price meals in 2021 because they came from households earning either less than 130 percent of the poverty level or between 130 and 185 percent.

At Bucknell, where most of the students qualify for free and reduced-price meals, most parents “don’t have discretionary money for things like this, said Bucknell staffer Marilyn Wilson, parent liaison.

One of her daughters, who attends the United Community Early Learning Center, will soon be on the way to kindergarten, and will get one of the backpacks prepared by St. Luke’s for a future crop of kindergarteners, said Jackie Viera, assistant director of the center. Her older daughter received one of the backpacks five years ago.”It saved me a lot of money,” she said.