Top 40 supplier Charles River Apparel (asi/44620) wants to make sure all students start school on a strong footing. So, employees gathered last week at the Sharon, MA, headquarters to assemble 1,200 school kits for children in need, as part of an initiative by nonprofit Cradles to Crayons.

Cradles to Crayons provides children from birth through age 12, living in low-income or homeless situations, with essential items like school supplies and clothing. Its annual “Ready for Learning” initiative assembles and distributes school-supply kits and backpacks with the help of volunteers and corporate partners.

Charles River Apparel employees assembled more than 1,200 school kits for children in need, as part of a “Ready for Learning” initiative through nonprofit Cradles to Crayons.

Charles River has supported Cradles to Crayons’ mission for over a decade. (Last year, the supplier stuffed more than 1,000 backpacks.) This year, the firm incorporated the event into its annual sales meeting to promote maximum participation. Over 50 employees, including sales representatives who traveled across the country to attend, packed pencils, notebooks, markers and other school supplies.

“Our crew is always proud to support Cradles to Crayons,” said Jason Lipsett, marketing director at Charles River. “Our participation in this year’s Ready for Learning initiative was particularly rewarding as we had an unprecedented number of employees volunteer to help give back to our community.”

Thanks to the help of Charles River and other corporate partners, the Ready for Learning initiative will give more than 70,000 children the tools they need for the new school year, according to Aubrey Henderson, executive director of Cradles to Crayons Massachusetts. “As we prepare students to return to their classrooms across Massachusetts this fall, we recognize that now, more than ever, all children deserve the proper tools to learn and grow,” she said.

In addition to school kits, Charles River also provided Cradles to Crayons with a $10,000 sponsorship to support the organization’s other initiatives, such as providing winter gear to children and supporting newborns.

With 2021 North American promotional products revenue of $42 million, Charles River ranked 38^th on Counselor’s most-recent list of the larger suppliers in the industry. The Cradles to Crayons initiative isn’t the only charitable project the supplier has worked on this year. Last month, it pledged to donate 10% of net sales from several of its most popular pink items sold from Aug. 1 through Oct. 31 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. In February, the supplier donated $30,000 worth of face masks to Community Captains, a charitable program run by the New England Patriots Foundation in partnership with Bank of America.