Marjorie's Hope

***To the General Public:***

Marjorie’s Hope backpacks are never distributed through public giveaway events, and every school and agency we partner with is aware of this policy.

Marjorie’s Hope donates backpacks only to Pasco County Schools and a select number of approved local nonprofit co-partnering agencies. It is those schools and agencies—not Marjorie’s Hope—that determine which children and families receive assistance. They know the individual circumstances of the families they serve and are in the best position to determine eligibility.

Marjorie’s Hope does not call schools or agencies to instruct them to give a backpack to the Smith, Jones, or Doe family. Those decisions are made solely by our approved referral partners.

For the 2026 Back-to-School season, all Marjorie’s Hope backpacks have already been allocated to our approved schools and nonprofit partners for distribution to the students and families they have identified as needing assistance.

We appreciate the public’s understanding and continued support as we work together to ensure these resources reach the children who need them most.

***Important Notice to All Current Marjorie’s Hope Referral Partners***

***To our valued school district, social service agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community partners:***

***We need your immediate assistance.***

Over the past two weeks, Marjorie’s Hope has experienced a significant increase in phone calls, emails, text messages, and referral requests from organizations that are not approved referral partners. Many of these organizations have received our information, event flyers, referral form or references to our programs through unauthorized sharing.

Please understand that our referral forms, informational flyers, and agency communications are interagency documents intended only for organizations that have been approved by Marjorie’s Hope. They are NOT to be forwarded, copied, distributed, or shared with other agencies, organizations, parents, or the general public without our written permission.

Our referral system was intentionally created to:

* Protect the integrity of our programs.
* Ensure referrals come from agencies that understand our eligibility requirements.
* Provide a fair and consistent process for every family we serve.
* Allow our volunteers to focus their time on helping children instead of processing unauthorized requests.

Marjorie’s Hope is a 100% volunteer-operated nonprofit. No one on our team receives a salary—including myself. Every phone call, email, and referral review is handled by volunteers who are already working tirelessly to prepare thousands of backpacks and school supplies, sorting through beautiful gently used clothing donations, preparing wardrobe boxes to be distributed to all high schools for student donations to our Cinderella Prince Charming program. All above stated programs and projects are for economically disadvantaged students to be completed
before the start of the school year.

The recent volume of unauthorized inquiries has become so overwhelming that it is taking valuable time away from ordering school supplies, coordinating volunteers, and preparing for our annual distribution to thousands of Pasco County students and preparing our Outfitters store for back to school shopping.

Effective immediately, we have temporarily suspended the approval of any new referring agencies while we determine how our internal documents are being distributed unauthorized!

If we determine that an approved agency has been forwarding Marjorie’s Hope referral materials or internal documents without authorization, we will review that organization’s referral privileges. Continued unauthorized sharing may result in removal from our approved referral partner network.

This decision was not made lightly. It is necessary to protect the integrity of our programs and ensure that our limited volunteer resources remain focused where they belong—serving children and families in need.

We sincerely appreciate the agencies that have respected our referral procedures over the years. Your professionalism and partnership have helped make our programs successful, and we thank you for your continued cooperation.

If you have questions regarding referral procedures, please contact Marjorie’s Hope directly rather than sharing our documents with another organization. If you need a backpack, please call your child’s school and ask if they have backpacks to donate OR look for ALL the Facebook posts advertising backpack giveaways.

Thank you for helping us protect the programs that serve our community’s children.

The greatest gift our referral partners can give us right now is respecting our referral process. Every unnecessary phone call, email, and text message takes valuable time away from ordering school supplies, sorting and laundering gently used clothing donations, and wrapping up our Cinderella Prince Charming community collection drive on July 25, along with our upcoming high school collection
event—all for children who are counting on us before school begins. Thank you for helping us keep our focus where it belongs—on the kids.

Debi Shackowsky
CEO & Founder
Marjorie’s Hope