Waste Management of San Diego

Backpacks, pens, binders, notebooks, markers, crayons … back-to-school season can really put the pinch on any family budget, especially for those serving on active duty in the U.S. military. With this in mind, Waste Management of San Diego County put together Waste Management Project Backpack.

Project Backpack’s goal was to help local military families off-set the cost of back-to-school season by providing new backpacks and school supplies free of charge. To do this, the project reached out to the community, area businesses and to it’s own Waste Management employees to secure backpacks and supplies.

“Our employees wanted to do something to help local military families and this project was a perfect fit,” said El Cajon District Manager Carl Scherbaum. “Everyday I’d come into the office and there would be more donations from staff … they really opened their hearts to this project.”

In addition, Waste Management purchased over 1,000 backpacks to add to the donations. Once the backpacks were sorted and counted, the project ended up with 1,687 backpacks to help local military families.

“I’ve been in the Navy for 13 years and because of this project I’ve been able to do my duty knowing that the people from Waste management are there to support my family,” said Petty Officer Adrian Bataan, U.S. Navy. “The feeling I get when I see the smile on my son’s face just seems to takes all the stress away from everyday Navy life and receiving a backpack with school supplies did that.”

With the assistance of two weeks of news coverage from U.S. 95.7 radio, two news stories from KFMB-TV and several news articles from area newspapers, Waste Management Project Backpack became well known in the San Diego area.

“I’d wear my Waste Management polo shirt out in public and people would stop and ask me how backpack collections were going,” Dummar said. “It was nice to see that the community was supportive of Waste Management Project Backpack and our local military.”

The project took a month to organize and plan with the help of over 40 Waste Management employees who volunteered their time, creativity and sweat to the project.

“The smiles in the faces of these kids made it all worth while,” said Oceanside/Carlsbad District Manager Ken Ryan. “Military families sacrifice so much and this project allowed Waste Management to say thank you.”