The first day of school is right around the corner. With a new school year comes the need for new supplies and rising costs can make this season difficult for some families. This local event aims to make back-to-school shopping a little easier.
Linda Hernandez’s daughters are getting ready to start first grade. The three were some of the first people in line for Sunday’s back-to-school event in Arroyo Grande.
“It's a blessing because you know what? It's hard, especially with all the prices going up and gas," Hernandez said. "Everything is like popping up high. This really helps us.”
She said she and her family came two years ago and with twins, costs stack up quickly around the beginning of the school year. Hernandez said she spends hundreds of dollars to get her girls ready for school.
“You're talking about like a $200 clothing allowance and then shoes and the backpacks, so it should be about 500 bucks," she said.
This is the fourth year Tracy Hernandez and her husband Adrian have hosted the back-to-school event at Gospel Lighthouse Church in Arroyo Grande. Tracy told me they expected over a thousand people.
“We just love the community and we know that because there's a lot of not as fortunate people as we are," Tracy said. "We have an outlet where we've bought the backpacks. My husband ordered, like, 600 backpacks.”
According to the National Retail Federation, the average person is expected to spend about $864 on back-to-school shopping this year. It’s an increase from last year’s average cost of around $858. The NRF predicts a record-setting total of 43.3 billion dollars will be spent on K-12 shopping alone.
Tracy said rising costs have impacted what they can provide to people coming to the event. Instead of giving out 100 bikes, they’ve had to downsize to 50.
Despite this, she told me they work hard to make this day memorable for every family.
“A lot of these people that come here, they'll never get to even go to the fair, much less Hawaii or Disneyland and all the things that we've had," she said. "So we try to make this like a mini day of no worries, no cares, get a free backpack and eat a good lunch and get a cake and just have fun.”
