Upstate Backpack Blessings

09/01/2026

Tuesday arrives. The Facility is sitting still waiting. The under acknowledged Restocking Crew arrives! They completely reset the whole set of menu items on every shelf. More than 420 of each items totalling more than 5,000 individual items. Each set perfectly and ready for the next packing team to come in on Monday. Thank you Deborah Pickard for you and your team's incredible work! It is noticed and appreciated! (Note: This is one of two teams she works with! We will see them next week!) Thank you Deborah, Glen, Gail, Terri, Teresa and Marcus!

09/01/2026

We were TRULY BLESSED with a Wonderful Monday start to the new school year. The 'Blue Team' gathered and packed more than 410 Supplemental Food Bags that will be delivered throughout Greenville County Schools later this week. Thank You Dear Friends for the Gift of your Time and Energy!!!

08/29/2026

It's very calm, very quiet right now.... But not for Long. See You Monday!

08/22/2026

We are patiently waiting to hear from our Wonderful Partners at Our Schools!
Watch this space 😎
We are Here!

08/12/2026

07/15/2026

Good Morning Upstate!
To our Friends, Followers, Supporters, Volunteers, Staff and Prayer Warriors!
We Hope you are well and staying cool! What a sizzler it has been.
We here at Upstate Backpack Blessings are very grateful for the texts, calls and emails that we have received from you all. Keep them coming! We truly enjoy being part of a phenomenal Community.
It has now come to a moment in our summertime to pause, take a deep breath and make preparations for the upcoming school year.

We will be closed beginning Thursday 16 July through Friday 31 July.
We will have very limited access to phone calls or texts, and only sporadic email.

Thank you for your understanding as we pause briefly to rest, reflect and recreate in order to be prepared to Serve the Children in the upcoming school year 2026 - 27.

We will respond as soon as feasible.

With Kindest Regards to You All,
Henry Pickard, Director

05/26/2026

Summer Break and End of School Year 2025 - 2026!

Greetings,
We send our heartfelt gratitude that we are continuing to be able to accomplish the Mission that is in front of us. We are Blessed by love, care and support from so many wonderful Brothers and Sisters as well as multiple staunchly faithful supporting Churches!

We were supported in an increased measure by multiple food drives held by different Schools, persons, neighborhoods and local companies.
Of particular note, 12 of our 21 schools stepped into the support role for us providing more than $22,000 of food items.

Additionally, we collected more than 2,000 jars of peanut butter and distributed them at 4 junctures throughout the school year at a nominal value of $5,500. We also have been gifted enough to send out a jar to every student at the beginning of the next school year.

During this semester we added an additional school to our Mission, bringing our total to 21.
We packed and delivered 8,764 supplemental food bags.
These bags total more than 43,800 pounds of food items.
We averaged 457 bags per week.

A significant change we made is that any food that we absolutely cannot use for our Mission is passed to the Canebrake Fire Department, which they use to restock and supply the "Blessing Boxes or Compassion Pantries" that are collocated with their stations.

We continue to be supported by a true cadre of Volunteers. Our current total of regular/repeating volunteers is 40 with additional personnel coming from Ft. Inn High School students.

We also hosted 9 Groups on various occasions from a variety of types and locations such as WMU, Mission Minded Women, various Sunday Schools, Greenville County Schools, and Church Youth Groups.

For the overall School Year of 2025-26:
15,560 Bags Packed and Delivered.
63,740 Pounds of Food
457 Children's Lives affected weekly (avg.)

Goals:
Remain where we are located physically.
Increase visibility by speaking engagements.
Create a third packing crew to facilitate less wear and tear on volunteers
and to allow more outside groups to come in thus increasing community awareness.

05/17/2026

The Staff and Volunteers here at Upstate Backpack Blessings wish to express our deepest heart-felt sympathy to one of our long-term Volunteers Amber Lamont and her Family in the loss of her Husband Chief Petty Officer Steven Lamont USNR (Ret.) . Our Thoughts and Prayers are with Amber and her Family during this difficult transition time. 🇺🇸

04/29/2026

And, to round out the month of April, another of our Long-time friends at Greenville ARP Church sent word that they had gathered us up some peanut butter!We said yes, we will be there! They provided us with just shy of 200 jars of peanut butter which combined with Burn Boot Camp and several other of ourPartners made it completely possible for the Children to get a jar of peanut butter for the first bag in May which they will get on the 6th. We Love being part ofan enormous Caring Community! Thank you So Very Much!

04/29/2026

Later that week... we had a group of ladies from Fork Shoals Baptist Church WMU Mission Group come and visit. We are Blessed to have long term Partnerships with a number of Churches and Groups of people, and they are one of those. We refer to them as 'Walking Partners!' They toured the Facility and Gifted us with
a Generous amount of Food. Thanks for Walking with Us so patiently and so caring!