Salvation Army holds back-to-school fair as service demand rises

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) -The school year is right around the corner and families are making the transition from summer fun to Back to Class.

Mankato’s Salvation Army held its annual Back to School Community Fair Thursday.

The event has run each year for more than a decade in hopes of helping families get what they need to start the school year off right.

Backpacks, haircuts, shoes and vouchers for clothes at the Salvation Army thrift store are all made available free of charge, and leaders at the Salvation Army said that it’s important for all students to feel like regular kids, even when their family is having a difficult time.

““We know this is something that’s gonna help them struggle less,” said Captain Andy Wheeler of the Mankato Salvation Army. “So we want their kids to be able to go to school with some pride having a new backpack, some fresh kicks. That stuff is really important because we don’t want the kids to suffer even though their family is having a hard time.”

The majority of the resources available came from an anonymous donor, and volunteers from both the Salvation Army and St, Peter’s Lutheran Church helped keep everything running smoothly, alongside a variety of community organizations who volunteered their services.

The fair comes at the end of a busy summer for the Salvation Army, who said that their Day Shelter saw more demand than it has in years.

“We found this year that it’s much more of a need than we would have anticipated. Just in the month of July we saw 22 new faces that we’ve never seen before that needed to come and use our shelter,” Wheeler said.

The Day Shelter only recently expanded to include summer hours, and it’s expected to keep its demand as summer rolls into fall and then into winter.

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