UCLI is honored to announce the resounding success of its 2025 Back-to-School Drive. This year, UCLI was privileged to partner formally with Greenberg Traurig, whose generosity provided a significant portion of the school supplies that filled hundreds of backpacks. We are also deeply grateful for the contributions from each of you – attorneys, advocates, volunteers, and friends of UCLI – whose donations of funds, supplies, and time made this effort possible. This year we exceeded our fundraising goal of $2,500 thanks to the huge outpouring of community support shown. Together, these financial and in-kind gifts allowed UCLI to assemble and distribute around 500 backpacks, complete with critical school supplies, to students across the state. What began as a modest hope to meet a few local needs has flourished into an enduring tradition of care, advocacy, and community partnership.
At times, impact is imagined only in grand gestures. But UCLI’s mission has always rested on the belief that every act of support matters. A backpack filled with notebooks and pencils is not only a tool for the classroom, but it is a symbol of dignity, preparedness, and the belief that every child deserves the opportunity to thrive. Advocacy, as UCLI sees it, is not defined by scale, but by the sincerity of intention and the steady work of creating fairness, opportunity, and justice.
Building on the successes of the 2024 back-to-school drive which served the Boys and Girls Club and Backman Elementary School, we were happy to have had Meadowlark Elementary as an additional recipient of school supplies in 2025. Together, these schools represent vibrant communities of students whose futures are enriched not only through access to school supplies but also through exposure to UCLI’s mission and the possibility of pursuing a legal career.
As in past years, UCLI’s interns and ambassadors, as well as local attorneys, played an essential role in organizing, packing, and distributing supplies. They also shared information about UCLI’s mission at each back-to-school night, helping families and students connect with community resources and pathways into the legal profession. The season kicked off on August 9 with the Boys & Girls Club event at Dixon Middle School, followed by Backman Elementary School’s back-to-school night on August 15. The series wrapped up at Meadowlark Elementary School on Monday, August 18, where UCLI once again had a presence to ensure families were welcomed and supported.
The success of the back-to-school drive reminds us that progress comes not in isolation, but through the combined strength of partners and community members! By ensuring that hundreds of Utah’s children begin the year prepared, confident, and hopeful, we take another step toward a future where justice is within reach for all here in Utah. UCLI expresses heartfelt gratitude to this year’s partners: Backman Elementary, Meadowlark Elementary, the Boys and Girls Club of Utah County, and Greenberg Traurig, as well as to every individual who donated funds and school supplies. Your contributions have helped make this work possible, and your impact will resonate far beyond the classroom!
UCLI Associate Director Sabrina Ruiz Monroy, tabling at the Backman Elementary School Back-to-School Night event on August 15, 2025.
Children shared their superpower and wrote about what they hope to become in the future during Backman Elementary’s Back-to-School Night on August 15, 2025.
Kyra Woods, Annemarie Garrett, and Izzy Beckstead from Greenberg Traurig, LLP joined UCLI at Backman Elementary’s Back-to-School Night on August 15, 2025, helping distribute donated backpacks filled with school supplies and UCLI swag.
UCLI intern Alofaifo Faleono, UCLI ambassador Ale Benevides, Rachel Miller (attorney at Lear & Lear PLLC), and Amaris Leiataua (attorney at Holland and Hart) joined together to table and hand out backpacks at Meadowlark Elementary’s Title I Back-to-School Night on August 18, 2025.
UCLI ambassador Ale Benevides speaks with a mother at the Boys & Girls Club event at F. Dixon Middle School about UCLI programming for her children on August 9, 2025.
