Let’s face it, most young people aren’t as excited about going back to school as they are about the start of summer.

We at PPL Electric Utilities want to ease their transition by powering the start to the school year, providing brand-new supplies to students.

Our hope is to help students be prepared on the first day of the school year and lighten the expense parents may face when buying supplies every summer.

That’s why we started the Backpack Builders program, delivering 350 packs of supplies to Panther Valley Elementary School in Nesquehoning this fall.

This is a new program that supplies students with materials including notebooks, folders, pens, pencils and other items that are essential to helping elementary-age students succeed in the classroom.

Going to the schools and meeting the students was fun and rewarding, and students were excited to head back to class with full backpacks.

PPL Electric has long supported education with initiatives to foster students’ success from cradle to career. Our Backpack Builders program is the latest action we’re taking in our commitment to education by giving students a boost with some supplies at the start of the academic year. In total, we provided over 2,500 packets to schools in our 29-county service area.

Prior to this program, our Cover to Cover initiative supported summer reading for kindergartners through third graders. Nearly 9,000 new books were donated to 20 summer reading programs in 2023 to help prevent the summer slide. We believe that building a strong foundation is critical to the success of today’s students.

Our support of education begins with the students, but it doesn’t end there. Through our STEM Educator Awards, PPL annually honors teachers who have demonstrated success in designing and facilitating student-centered STEM learning that engages the next generation of innovative thinkers. Since 2003, we’ve donated $500,000 to educators throughout central and eastern Pennsylvania.

Empowering the communities we serve has been a hallmark of PPL for more than a century. Every year, the PPL Foundation awards nearly $1 million in support of nonprofit organizations and community initiatives. These awards focus on areas of education ranging from STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math), literacy and summer learning and college and career readiness.

We know this time of year can be stressful, but it is also exciting. We thank Panther Valley Elementary and the Panther Valley School District for partnering with us this fall, and we wish all students and their families across Pennsylvania a safe and happy year ahead.