Local program provides foster care youth with supplies to help them start school year on right foot

SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Back to school preps are underway for thousands of students in Southern California. But for many, this can be a challenging season - especially for those in the foster care system. That's precisely why a former foster youth decided to step in with her own plan.

Pack to the Future is a backpack drive for high school and college bound students who have experienced the foster care system. The event relieves some of the burden students may feel about the first day of school.

Raquel Wilson is the driving force behind the event. She is a former foster youth herself.

"I know what it was like going to school with nothing, absolutely nothing. I had a trash bag when I started school and a radio, and I remember what I felt like not having anything and being alone," said Wilson. "So I wanted to put on the event to pay homage to not only foster youth but to the older seasoned foster youth that often get forgotten about."

Wilson is the program manager at Youth Voices Rising at Fostering Media Connections. They bring media and journalism training to foster youth who have been impacted by the juvenile system, foster care system or homelessness so they can tell their stories and publish them.

Her event also offered services like hair styling, haircuts and supplies, plus a big donation from KB Homes, with $50,000 going to Youth Voices Rising.

"They went to laptops. They also got microwaves for their dorm rooms, bed sheets, everything that you need to survive in college that their scholarships maybe didn't cover," said Hayley Bradshaw with KB Homes.

The supplies handed out at the event helped students like Alondra Sanchez Felix get set up for success. She's studying computer science and received a brand new laptop at the event.

"I got a lot of new things that would help me in college. I got a new computer. I got some dorm supplies. I got some backpack supplies," said Sanchez Felix. "I got a lot of things that would help me in the future."

Wilson says she hopes events like these change the way students experience high school and college so they feel just as ready for the school year like any other student.

"To all the people out in the world that is hoping to do something or hoping to make a difference somewhere in somebody's life, my favorite quote that I like to use is, 'Aspire to inspire before you expire,'" she said.