Labor Day is behind us, and it is that bittersweet time of year. Summer is officially over. Pumpkin spice and Halloween candy are filling the store shelves, but it isn’t quite fall.
Everyone is officially back to school. Of course, the lucky ones started this week and not in August like so many California schools. College football is back, cozy sweaters are beginning to call our names, and yet September somehow has one foot in summer and another reaching toward fall.
September is the space between. It is that little pause between where we have been and where we are going. Perhaps that is exactly why I love it.
The Space Between
Transitions give us time to adapt and ease into change. As I have written many times before, change is often best served slowly, if possible. Most of us are not exactly wired to embrace the one thing, besides death and taxes, that we know to be true. The reality is that everything changes.
I often talk about this when I speak. Why is it that we love change in the rearview mirror but are terrified of change in front of us?
Think about it. A new haircut can feel terrifying until everyone tells you how fabulous you look. Starting a new job can keep you awake for weeks. Then, six months later, you tell everyone, “I love my new job!” A knee replacement sounds absolutely dreadful until you hear someone say, “I can’t believe I waited so long. I feel like a kid again!”
Change is scary until it isn’t. Perhaps that is why September feels like such a gift. The month gives us a minute to shift gears. Our routines return, school begins, football is back, and life starts to find its rhythm again.
Back to School
For children, however, this transition can be enormous. Do you remember the night before the first day of school? There was excitement, nerves, wondering who your teacher would be, which friends would be in your class and, of course, what you were going to wear.
As parents, we experienced the other side of that transition. New shoes, uniforms, backpacks, lunch boxes, pencils, notebooks and endless lists of school supplies somehow signaled that summer was officially over.
Yet, for millions of children, back to school brings another kind of worry. Will I have what I need? That question changes everything. A pencil seems like such a little thing until you are the only child who doesn’t have one. A backpack is just a backpack until yours is the reason you feel different from everyone else.
Supplies for Success
Last year, I had the privilege of interviewing Mindy Richenstein, founder of Supplies for Success, for the Charity Matters Podcast. Our conversation completely changed the way I thought about school supplies.
Mindy began Supplies for Success in 2002 after learning that children were starting school without the basic supplies they needed. That first year, she provided backpacks for just 68 children. Today, the organization has served more than 300,000 children nationwide.
However, what stayed with me wasn’t the number of backpacks. It was what those backpacks represented.
Mindy explained that when children arrive at school with fresh notebooks, sharpened pencils and a new backpack like their classmates, something happens. They feel included. They feel prepared. Most importantly, they walk through the school doors with dignity and confidence instead of shame or embarrassment.
A backpack isn’t simply carrying school supplies. That backpack is carrying confidence, possibility and hope.
Mindy’s story is also one of incredible resilience. After the devastating loss of her 37-year-old son, Eric, in 2020, she found a way to channel her grief into helping even more children. Eric’s Care Kits were created during the pandemic to provide art supplies and activities for children stuck at home. Once again, Mindy turned pain into purpose and found another way to serve.
You can read and listen to our full Charity Matters conversation with Mindy here: Season 9 Premiere, Episode 91: Supplies for Success.
Helpers Are Everywhere
Of course, Supplies for Success isn’t alone in this important work. Across the country, nonprofits are helping children begin school ready to learn. The Kids In Need Foundation provides essential school supplies to students and teachers in under-resourced schools. Meanwhile, Operation Homefront’s Back-to-School Brigade provides backpacks and school supplies to military children.
Each organization reminds us that helping doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes changing a life begins with a box of crayons. Perhaps it’s a backpack, a notebook or a package of pencils. Maybe it’s volunteering at a packing event or simply making a donation. Small acts add up.
The Space Between
Maybe that is the lesson September has for all of us. Life is full of spaces between. We stand between childhood and adulthood, one job and the next, sickness and health, loss and healing, summer and fall. Sometimes we know exactly where we are headed. Other times, we simply have to trust that the next season will come.
More importantly, back to school reminds us that not everyone enters a new season with the same tools. Sometimes the smallest act of kindness can make someone else’s transition a little easier. A backpack, a notebook, a new pair of shoes or a box of crayons might seem insignificant to us. However, to a child walking nervously through those school doors, those simple things can mean everything. They say: You are ready. You belong. We believe in you.
Perhaps that is what all of us need to hear when we find ourselves in the space between. So, here’s to September. Here’s to back to school, new beginnings and this beautiful pause between seasons. Most of all, here’s to the people who help us move from where we have been toward wherever we are meant to go next. Because none of us gets through life’s transitions alone.
How lucky we are when someone helps us carry the backpack.
CHARITY MATTERS.
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