READING, Pa – It’s back to school time!<\/p>\n
“We have 1,800 students in the Reading School District, and this is not just closed to Reading residents, we will accept anyone that gets on that line,” said Mayor Eddie Moran.<\/p>\n
Anxious and excited parents, kids and teachers took to the courtyard near Sixth and Penn streets in downtown Reading for the fifth annual Back To School Giveaway.<\/p>\n
“There are a lot of wrap around services here,” said PA Rep. Manny Guzman. “It’s not just about giving backpacks, but it’s also about making sure kids can leave with fresh food.”<\/p>\n
“One might say how many book bag giveaways can there be? Well, you know what, it’s never enough,” the Mayor said. “We want to make sure our little ones are prepared for the school year.”<\/p>\n
But back to school can mean a big financial burden on parents, kids and even teachers.<\/p>\n
“I work in a school with kids in need and this is a great event for families that also need that can’t afford it,” said mom and educator Penelope De La Cruz.<\/p>\n
“It’s really expensive for everybody,” said Alfonso Albino, who helps his wife run a day care in the city.<\/p>\n
Now it’s not just about free school supplies and other necessities to get parents and kids ready to go back to school, but also a fresh cut to give them some confidence too.<\/p>\n
“Haircut was the number one thing, ’cause you didn’t go to school with a hair cut you looked like you didn’t ‘have’, at least that was the one thing that felt you had something,” said Barber Tito Vasquez.<\/p>\n
So – ready or not – the new school year is just days away – and these families say they’re a least a little closer – to being ready.<\/p>\n
“Every year, every school supplies get so expensive, you have families every day coming into the school saying, ‘I can’t afford this, my kids need this,’ so this event here is everything,” said Penelope De La Cruz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa – It’s back to school time! “We have 1,800 students in the Reading School District, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,128,130,129,213],"class_list":["post-268552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}