It all started when Ella Bohmann Farrell and Faith Cropper were appalled by the border crisis and decided to looked further into children and families living in border towns experiencing immigration complications.

They realized these young people need so many of the things we take for granted. So, they decided to start the Carebears initiative to give people at the border some more love, support, and aid.

In January, we took our fundraising to the next level by sending out personalized donation letters to all of our friends and family. Each Carebear wrote about 3-5 letters, and we sent about 200 letters total.

From letters alone we raised about $2,500. We were both shocked and ecstatic that people actually believed in our mission. We are eternally grateful for all of those who donated.

Ella visited a few US-Mexico border towns like San Ysidro and Calexico to visit some of the shelters and schools we had been communicating with. That is when she met Hortencia, administrator of Calexico Unified School District.

After the visit we stayed in communication with Hortencia who helped us plan our care-package distribution for the Calexico schools and a nearby womens shelter.

Then, we launched our backpack drive. We learned that some children facing immigration issues could only travel with what they had on their backs, so our goal became collecting as many backpacks as we could to hold all of the school and aid supplies to each child.

After relentless marketing on flyers around our school and community and instagram and NextDoor posts, we gathered about 200 new backpacks.

In March we were issued the Jefferson Award for Public Service, the most prestigious and longest-standing public service award in the United States.

The award is intended to recognize "local grassroot unsung heroes." We were so grateful to receive an award of this caliber, and excited that it would give us more credibility when fundraising.