Santa's elves — or more like angels — are already working overtime to deliver much-needed necessities this upcoming holiday season to children who are scraping by.
Their mission began in 1984. Beverly Perham used $500 of her own money to start what would become Back to Basics. The nonprofit provides basic items like shoes and socks to children in need.
Perham, now a retired school teacher, was inspired after learning 30 kids from Haiti had just arrived in Palm Beach County by boat right around Christmas, with absolutely nothing.
"We have to care about our neighbors. We have to care that they don't have shoes to wear to school. They don't have underwear," said Perham.
Today, Back to Basics aims to help nearly 10,000 children in Palm Beach County elementary schools.
"And we aren't hitting them all. We're hitting maybe 40% of the ones in the elementary schools that we target. So, there's so many more than that," said Kelle Enrique, a volunteer.
Right now, the nonprofit is recruiting sponsors to help support its Angel Program. It's particularly making an appeal to clubs, civic groups, churches or any organization that can pool together a sizable amount of help to sponsor several children.
The "ask" is simple. Sponsors are asked to buy four things for a child: a pair of shoes that fit, socks, underwear and an age-appropriate toy.
You can sign up on www.backtobasicsinc.org. Back to Basics will mail you instructions and custom tags for each child you commit to helping. The tags specify if the child is a boy or girl, their age and sizes. All gifts should be placed in a gift bag and returned to the Back to Basics warehouse in West Palm Beach before Thanksgiving.
The nonprofit's signature mission is its school uniform program, providing nearly 20,000 new school uniforms to children in need at the start of the school year.
