The back-to-school season is upon us, and MNUFC and Standard Heating & Air have teamed up for a second consecutive year to help students in the community prepare through a school supply drive and packing initiative, with all donations benefiting local nonprofit Neighborhood House.

For over 128 years, Neighborhood House has worked to support immigrants, refugees, and others in transition or crisis throughout the city of Saint Paul. Their programming ranges from adult education to housing assistance and youth literacy. The donated school supplies will help program participants and community members prepare for the new school year and focus on their education without worrying about resources.

Both MNUFC and Standard Heating received donations at their offices and at the official Loons Watch Party in July. The companies then joined forces to pack 182 backpacks of school supplies (a 40-backpack increase from last year’s supply drive) for distribution by Neighborhood House. Additional boxes of school supplies, including pencils, erasers, colored pencils, notebooks, folders, and TI-84 graphing calculators for ACT/SAT use were donated as well.

“Our mission at Standard Heating is to make lives better through the practice of our trades. Not only should the work we do make a positive difference for the people we do it for, our work should also allow us to be a source of good in the broader community,” said Claire Ferrara, third-generation President and CEO at Standard Heating. “That good can come in a variety of ways, but in this case, it meant filling 182 backpacks with school supplies so local kids could head back to school prepared and ready to learn. We’re proud to support Neighborhood House in this way and grateful for the important work they do in our community."