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French Toast Schoolwear Partners with Give Back Box and Friendship House This Holiday Season

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French Toast, the leading schoolwear brand has expanded its partnership with Friendship House, a non-profit organization serving the Delaware community to include Give Back Box, a program that facilitates circularity and sustainability by coordinating free shipping for charitable donations and repurposing existing packaging and previously used boxes. French Toast had partnered with Friendship House to gift schoolwear to schools throughout the state through a series of clothing drops for back-to-school. Now, communities everywhere can continue to support by simply donating their gently used French Toast schoolwear via the Give Back Box program using a prepaid shipping label mailed directly to the Friendship House team.

“We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with Friendship House through this holiday season, with the added benefit of working with the Give Back Box program to encourage the community to support this cause with us, By encouraging families to hand down schoolwear, we extend the life of our products in the most meaningful way.”

-Stephen Ashear, President of French Toast.

Previously, French Toast and Friendship House worked together to deliver school uniform clothing items to thirteen schools across Delaware, responding to the needs of students and families experiencing homelessness and houselessness ahead of the school year. Now, with Giving Tuesday on the horizon, Friendship House is particularly aware of the gaps in Delaware communities that need addressing.

“No child should have to go without clothing, The lack of needed resources continue to increase for our community as economic concerns continue to rise. We are seeing more families than ever struggle to put food on their tables and find appropriate clothing, especially clothing to meet school requirements. Therefore, our goal is to make it as easy as possible to help community members donate to children in need.”

-Kim Eppehimer, Executive Director of Friendship House.

The Give Back Box program allows anyone to mail in donations using a prepaid GBB shipping label for free. Participants may use any box, pack it, and simply attach the prepaid shipping label before drop off at any UPS location.

Giving Tuesday is an opportunity to contribute and support communities everywhere through our program, says Monika Wiela, Founder of Give Back Box. The work we do helps directly reduce the estimated 11 million tons of clothing other textile waste that ends up in U.S. landfills every year. We are sincerely grateful to French Toast and Friendship House for their partnership to further this initiative and directly benefit families.

ABOUT FRENCH TOAST:
French Toast is dedicated to making the best possible schoolwear accessible to ALL kids and ALL families from ALL walks of life. We are on a mission to help kids shine, whatever their passion, no matter the dress code, wherever they live or go to school. Since 1985, French Toast has been trusted by thousands of schools nationwide as their uniform provider and is committed to partnering with the communities we serve. French Toast works directly with our manufacturing partners in every step of the process, providing more value without sacrificing quality. 

ABOUT FRIENDSHIP HOUSE:
For more than 35 years, Friendship House has served the Delaware community with the support of volunteers, donors, community partners, and faith partners to address houselessness and homelessness through programs such as the Clothing Bank, Empowerment Centers, Code Purple, Financial Assistance, and Transitional Housing. Serving more than 10,000 people annually through these programs, Friendship House aims to fill gaps and support those experiencing homelessness, houselessness, and both. 

ABOUT GIVE BACK BOX:
Give Back Box® was founded in 2012 by Monika Wiela, who at the time was running an online shoe store. The idea was inspired by a homeless man she encountered in Chicago, who was holding up a sign saying he needed a pair of shoes. Wiela returned later that day with shoes for him, but he was gone. She spent that night thinking about what she could do with all the empty boxes in her warehouse and also help people like that man, and a new social enterprise was born. Give Back Box has truly created a new method of waste diversion for retailers because, in addition to creating a secondary use for the shipping box and guaranteeing that it will be recycled, it helps clear closets, create jobs and offer more companies and their customers an opportunity to recycle.

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