San Diego's got backpacks thanks to Nick Cannon, Office Depot

Award-winning actor, comedian and host of “America's Got Talent” Nick Cannon joined the Office Depot Foundation to distributed 4,000 colorful new sackpacks to deserving children served by non-profit organizations, schools and agencies in the San Diego area.

Happy backpack recipients

The Foundation – the independent charitable giving arm of Office Depot®  – presented the sackpacks, which contain essential school supplies, during a special “Back-to- School Celebration” at the Mission Valley Office Depot store on Aug. 22.

The non-profit organizations, schools and agencies that to received sackpacks at the event included Pazzaz Inc./New ERAA Planning Committee (in collaboration with the San Diego Unified School District), Bayside Community Center, YMCA of San Diego County.

This is the eighth consecutive year that the Office Depot Foundation has donated backpacks or sackpacks to Pazzaz for the New ERAA event.

"In keeping with our mission – Listen Learn Care − we created these fun and exciting sackpacks in response to what kids have told us they like,” says Foundation President Mary Wong. “Every year, we have seen our donations bring hope to children whose families might not be able to afford to buy school supplies. Parents and teachers alike tell us that we truly are helping children to build self-confidence, boost self-esteem and achieve greater success in the classroom – all as a result of being properly prepared for school.”

Through the award-winning National Backpack Program, which is now in its 12th year, the Office Depot Foundation plans to help children prepare for school by donating 400,000 sackpacks across the United States and internationally – the most ever in a single year. The sturdy, specially designed sackpacks come in seven different color combinations with kidfriendly graphics.

By the end of 2012, Office Depot and the Office Depot Foundation will have helped more than 2.9 million children since the inception of the program in 2001.

To give sackpacks to children this year, the Foundation is hosting more than 25 “Back-to-School Celebrations” in cities across the U.S. and in Puerto Rico – five of which will include Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet in the NASCAR® Sprint Cup Series™.

In addition, thousands of sackpacks are being distributed through Office Depot stores in hundreds of local communities and in collaboration with Office Depot’s Business Solutions Division in select cities.

Thousands more are being given to kids through the Foundation’s partnerships with a dozen non-profit organizations serving children nationally and internationally. The Foundation has teamed up with four new partners this year − AARP Experience Corps, Food For The Poor, Operation Homefront, and Speedway Children’s Charities. Continuing partners include the Tony Stewart Foundation, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA), the National Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Association, Feed The Children, the Kids In Need Foundation, Zach Bonner’s Little Red Wagon Foundation, the National Foundation for Women Legislators, and Samaritan’s Feet International, which will distribute sackpacks both nationally and overseas.

For the fifth consecutive year, donations will be made to children of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. For information on the Foundation and its initiatives, go to www.officedepotfoundation.org/. More information about the National Backpack Program can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/officedepotfoundation. You can also follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.twitter.com/officedepotfndn. The National Backpack Program’s hashtag is #OfficeDepotFndnKids.