School’s in Session: How Team Toyota Gives Back to Students

As school starts up again, many students are sporting new gear thanks to volunteering efforts by Toyota team members and dealers.

Several events took place over the summer to get students started off on the right foot.

Big Summer Giveback
Toyota and the Kids in Need Foundation (KINF) celebrated five years of supporting students with the Big Summer Giveback.

More than 600 dealers supported the Supply a Student program, which collected essential school supplies for under-resourced students. More than 65 dealers contributed $10,000 while hosting local backpack distribution events.

Helping Hands — Tracy Toyota dealership volunteers pose during their backpack distribution event they supported at Central Elementary School in Tracy, California.

The initiative has generated more than $8.5 million in donations over the years and supported more than 300,000 students nationwide.

Group Effort — Toyota’s ICX Department held their own backpack packing event where team members and their families volunteered to pack and prepare backpacks for the Big Summer Giveback supported by the Kids In Need Foundation. They assembled 3,000 backpacks for local Plano ISD students.

Learn more about the Kids in Need Foundation here.

TEAM Impact
Team members at Toyota’s headquarters in Plano gave back by volunteering their time packing backpacks for local students in conjunction with Community Partners of Dallas and Boys & Girls Club of Collin County.

About 250 volunteers helped sort, build and deliver over 500 backpacks full of school supplies to multiple organizations.

(Above and below) Impacting Communities — Team members at Toyota’s headquarters in Plano helped pack backpacks for students during an event organized by Team Impact.

Toyota Lexus Minority Owners Dealership Association
Toyota, the Toyota Lexus Minority Owners Dealership Association (TL-MODA) and the Salvation Army teamed up to provide more than 15,000 backpacks filled with age-appropriate items, such as pencils, notebooks and folders. A $10 Walmart gift card was included in many cases to ensure students could purchase other needed supplies for the new school year.

Distribution events took place throughout the summer with events hosted at TL-MODA dealerships, Salvation Army service centers, schools and summer camp locations nationwide.

Operation Backpack
Toyota’s Product Planning team collected backpacks this year for Operation Backpack, organized by Volunteers of America.

Students received brand new backpacks filled with grade-specific school supplies to help them start the school year prepared.

Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina
Team members at Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina supported New Teacher Shopping Day at Shift_ed’s Teacher Supply Warehouse, helping new teachers select free classroom materials as they prepare for their first school year. Toyota also sponsored breakfast and lunch for participating teachers.

Supporting Teachers – Team members at Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina helped teachers shop for free supplies.

Meanwhile, a handful of employee resource groups (ERGs) at Toyota Battery North Carolina hosted a campus-wide teacher supply drive, which benefited Driving Possibilities teachers and students in the area. Team members donated essential classroom items including headphones, cardstock, dry erase markers, notebooks, folders and more.

The drive exceeded its 200-item goal, collecting 407 school supplies.