{"id":114409,"date":"2025-08-03T01:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T01:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/114409\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T01:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T01:33:11","slug":"historic-eastside-church-community-partners-distribute-1000-backpacks-at-back-to-school-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/114409\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Eastside church, community partners distribute 1000 backpacks at back-to-school event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><strong>JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 The First Baptist Church of Oakland and different community partners handed out roughly a 1,000 backpacks at the 5th annual Historic Eastside Back-to-School Event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/topic\/Back-To-School\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.news4jax.com\/topic\/Back-To-School\/\">Click here for all Back-to-School coverage.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Music from the Jacksonville Jaguars D-Line energized crowds at the Jacksonville Fairground Expo Center, where families lined up to receive essential school supplies and resources.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cEverything is so expensive now, so for them to get the school supplies, that\u2019s one less burden,\u201d said Driea Jones, who arrived early with her three children. \u201cWe still have to get uniforms and things of that nature. So financially it\u2019s a great help.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Jones said coming to something like this event was amazing. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The event even energized students, who were happy to show off the items they received. <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cI got a bookbag, I got some food and a bag with a lot of stuff in it,\u201d Gabriella Jennings, an upcoming sixth grader said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Organizer and pastor of the church, Christopher McKee Jr., said seeing everyone out at the event Saturday brought him joy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cIt\u2019s our job as good neighbors, community members to do what we can to help support and uplift one another,\u201d McKee Jr., said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Beyond school supplies the event offered free laptops, haircuts, food and free physicals <\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The event was held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The First Baptist Church of Oakland and different community partners handed out roughly a 1,000&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":114410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,13915,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-114409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-back-to-school","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114962262006311905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}