With the fall semester creeping up on students, the annual back-to-school rush is in full effect. Stores are displaying school-supply lists and families will be looking to prepare their children for the upcoming school year. Mattie Rhodes Center has a way of helping these families with their Back to School Rally from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 4 at 148 N. Topping Ave.

Mattie Rhodes will be offering free backpacks, school supplies and uniforms to K-12 students in the Kansas City Public School District and surrounding charter and parochial schools in the Historic Northeast community. All students in need are encouraged to attend and pick up supplies while they last.

“The rally is meant to be a resource to support students, schools, educators and communities as they prepare to return to safe, healthy, in-person learning this fall and emerge from the pandemic stronger than before,” Mattie Rhodes President and CEO John Fierro said in a press release.

In addition to school supplies, the rally will include groceries, free books, health screening and immunizations from the Kansas City, Missouri, health department. For students aged 12 to 15, Children’s Mercy Hospital will provide free COVID-19 vaccinations.

Mattie Rhodes will also hand out information about the center’s various services such as individual, family and group therapy, visual arts education, after-school enrichment programs and health education. Development and Communications Director Angela Brunner said this rally is important to the surrounding community.

“One in three residents in the neighborhoods MRC serves live below the poverty level,” Brunner said in the press release. “For many children, this means many of them will go without the critical back to school necessities they need.”

The rally will be held from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. today at the Mattie Rhodes Center located at 148 N. Topping Ave.