{"id":325284,"date":"2026-08-19T21:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325284\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T21:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:28:09","slug":"bronx-back-to-school-fair-provides-families-with-free-supplies-groceries-and-resources-bronx-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/325284\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx back-to-school fair provides families with free supplies, groceries and resources \u2013 Bronx Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back-to-school season has begun in the Bronx, including one event in the South Bronx on August 13 where families received free groceries, backpacks, school supplies and even haircuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Office of the Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson and Montefiore Einstein once again partnered to host their annual Health and Literacy fair, this year at P.S.\/M.S. 29 The Melrose School. The fair intertwines programming, giveaways, and resources for both youth well-being and literacy programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Angel Gaud Jr., Deputy Director of Education & Youth Services at the Office of the Bronx Borough President, emphasized that despite the many free giveaways \u2013 including 400 free meals and 800 bookbags \u2013 the event hopes to inform Bronx residents of certain opportunities and highlight the importance of youth literacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping they really just take advantage of all the resources. It\u2019s about 60 vendors out there right now just providing different resources for the community,\u201d Gaud Jr. said.<\/p>\n

One of the many resources present at the event was the New York City Children\u2019s Center, a state-run mental health facility that serves youth in the NYC area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are able to treat people who are documented or undocumented, who have insurance or don\u2019t have insurance. So those are not, should not be, barriers to access to good care,\u201d social worker Jennifer Lawton said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Many free giveaways \u2013 including 400 free meals and 800 bookbags \u2013 the event hopes to inform Bronx residents of certain opportunities and highlight the importance of youth literacy. Photo by Maurice Burbridge<\/p>\n

Bronx Borough President Gibson recognized all the work that educators do to prioritize literacy skills in youth, despite the increasing amount of challenges and external forces which make it difficult.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our teachers and educators and administrators, supers, principals, AP\u2019s, the entire village that it takes to run our public schools. We appreciate you. Thank you for what you do. Thank you for your work every day, and we look forward to a new school year ahead,\u201d Gibson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Senior Vice President of Community Affairs Montefiore Einstein, Marcos A. Crespo, shared that Montefiore is proud to sponsor events like this and uplift the local community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we can\u2019t get to every single family, but we are reminding everyone that, at the end of the day, that\u2019s what community work is about. \u2029We help who we can, we do as much as we can, and we ensure that everybody understands that we\u2019re there for them, with love, with open arms, and open hands, whatever we can, to give back,\u201d Crespo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brandon Vernon, who works with the Office of Family and Community Empowerment, helped distribute free children\u2019s books at the event. Vernon considered the importance of literacy in all aspects of everyday life, including even driving and quickly understanding road signals.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t really have that understanding, you don\u2019t really have much. And it starts here. So we might as well be here using taxpayer dollars to give them back to the people who pay their taxes,\u201d Vernon said.<\/p>\n

Talia Haviv, Senior Child Life Specialist at the Children\u2019s Hospital at Montefiore, helped entertain children at the event, while providing their caregivers with key information about how child specialists make healthcare easier to understand for youth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Bronx Borough President Gibson recognized all the work that educators do to prioritize literacy skills in youth, despite the increasing amount of challenges and external forces which make it difficult.\u00a0Photo by Maurice Burbridge<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want everyone to know that when you come into a hospital, you can ask for a child specialist, and we basically are helping the family and the children throughout their experience,\u201d Haviv said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Borough President Gibson also recognized one of her interns, Annalys De La Rosa, with a leadership award for an exceptional presentation on how gun violence amongst young people in the Bronx can be addressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re giving them opportunities to learn so that they build skills, so that when they go back to school, high school and\/or college, they\u2019re even more prepared,\u201d Gibson explained, praising her interns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attendee Katherine Hernandez appreciated the help of free supplies and groceries, as well as the many resources offered.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cStuff that usually, if you were to go to a clinic, they\u2019re not going to give you, but here they give you more resources and tell you, \u2018Hey, you didn\u2019t know you qualified for this,\u2019\u201d Hernandez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Crespo considers the event a key part of Montefiore\u2019s mission to serve the community, recognizing that a good education is pivotal to good health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about understanding the biggest impact we can make in our communities is making sure our children are on the right path,\u201d Crespo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back-to-school season has begun in the Bronx, including one event in the South Bronx on August 13 where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[122488,5604,122489,128,122490,7771,9,24,122491,63,122492,2393,122493,129,131,130,6707],"class_list":["post-325284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-angel-gaud-jr","tag-back-to-school","tag-brandon-vernon","tag-bronx","tag-marcos-a-crespo","tag-montefiore","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-childrenu2019s-center","tag-nyc","tag-p-s-m-s-29-the-melrose-school","tag-south-bronx","tag-talia-haviv","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-vanessa-gibson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}