As the beginning of a new school year approaches, law firm Lerner and Rowe is preparing to give back to families by providing them with school supplies. The annual Backpack Giveaway will include stops in Tucson, Glendale and Mesa — helping to meet the growing need of students across Arizona.

“It’s not a handout — we’re just trying to help people and help families that need a little bit of help this season,” Lerner and Rowe Director of Charitable Giving Jordan Moreno said. 

Lerner and Rowe’s Backpack Giveaways will take place on Thursday, July 9 in Mesa, Monday, July 13 in Tucson and Friday, July 17 in Glendale. As part of this year’s community outreach effort, Moreno said that the first 550 kids at each venue will receive a new pair of shoes — Nike, Converse or Vans. 

Lerner and Rowe funded the shoe giveaway through the organization Delivering Dreams, which is one of its roughly 96 nonprofit partners. The director said that its partnerships with nonprofits help to make events such as the backpack giveaway possible — providing the organizations with funding to secure the necessary resources.   

The Tucson event, located at the Tucson Convention Center, will have 750 backpacks filled with school supplies. According to Moreno, the backpacks will be filled with items tailored to students’ grade levels. While the elementary school bags will include items such as crayons, the backpacks for the high schoolers will have specialized calculators and other items they need to be successful. 

The director said that the Glendale event, located at Desert Diamond Arena, will have 1,100 backpacks — making it the largest of the three events. Phoenix Raceway will be in attendance, bringing its show car and street team, and Phoenix Rescue Mission will provide food boxes to families as well.

To make each giveaway a family-friendly event, each venue will also feature face painting, balloon twisting and complimentary treats. The food trucks available, Moreno noted, will vary based on location. 

As a business that calls Arizona home, Lerner and Rowe’s goal is to give back to the community its employees, executives and founders work, live and play in, Moreno said. 

“Arizona is our headquarters — it is where Kevin Rowe and Glenn Lerner live,” Moreno said. “It’s something that is important to us because this is a community that we’re all living in day-to-day.”

She added that in the other communities the law firm serves, it organizes similar charitable events to the three upcoming backpack giveaways in Arizona. During Moreno’s first year with the company, Lerner and Rowe awarded approximately $180,000 in nonprofit grants. This year, the firm plans to distribute $500,000 among 40 organizations. As the years progress, Moreno explained, the rising costs of food, clothes and other necessities have increased, along with the needs of parents and their children — though the law firm’s contributions have increased as well.    

“I am a mom of two young kids, so I understand that it is expensive out there — holy smokes,” she said. 

Reports from the National Retail Federation indicate that the average spending per K-12 household on shopping in the 2025 back-to-school season was approximately $858.07. Moreno explained that beyond expanding accessibility and easing transportation needs, part of the reason why Lerner and Rowe’s Backpack giveaway has multiple stops in Arizona is because historically, resources diminish quickly after the events begin. She said last year, a backpack giveaway at Grand Canyon University ran out of its 1,300 backpacks in under an hour.

As the Backpack Giveaway dates approach, Moreno said that the company hopes to strike as close a balance between supply and demand as possible. As students arrive to receive the resources they need, she said she wishes them a “fantastic” school year on behalf of the Lerner and Rowe team. 

“We want to be able to support anyone that needs a little bit of support — we don’t want to turn families away and there aren’t necessarily any requirements to be able to receive one of these backpacks, other than the child being there to receive a backpack,” Moreno said. “That last backpack going out to the very last family and everybody smiling with full bellies on their way out, is an absolute success for us.”  

Lerner & Rowe Backpack Giveaway

WHERE: Tucson Convention Center, 260 S. Church Ave., Tucson

WHEN: 4 p.m. Monday, July 13

COST: Free admission

INFO: First come, first served. Child must be present. Free shoes for the first 550 children.