Pacific Farm Management hands out backpacks

For The Madera Tribune

Pacific Farm Management owner Mike Alamari hands PFM Supervisor Miguel Ortega two of the 750 backpacks his company handed out on Sunday. This is the second year in a row Alamari has held a backpack giveaway.

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For the second year in a row, Pacific Farm Management and Cal-Pacific Supply handed out backpacks to school-age children.

PFM owner Mike Alamari said he expects to make this a yearly event and has seen some faces from last year attend this year’s event.

“It was good to see the faces,” Alamari said. “We saw a lot of familiar faces and they recognized us, too. It was pretty neat. It is embedded in people’s head that we are doing a backpack giveaway every year. And, we should. There isn’t an end in sight.”

On Sunday, Alamari and his employees handed out almost 750 backpacks filled with school supplies to children.

“Some of the people remembered us from last year,” he said. “We had a pretty good turnout. I also know there were other people that did a backpack giveaway that didn’t do it last year. This year, there were more people that did it this year. We announced it on Facebook, and it got just as much hits as last year, but the turnout was a little less. This year, we did it in west Fresno, after.”

He may not have had as big a turnout as expected, but whatever backpacks he had left over, Alamari put at Cal-Pacific Supply and they were able to hand out the rest of the backpacks.

“We still had a long line,” Alamari said. “We had about 20 percent less. Last year, we ran out of backpacks. A lot of people kept coming into the store asking for backpacks.”

Alamari and his companies also sponsored a water and toilet paper giveaway during the pandemic and also held a food drive last year. He wants to keep giving back to the Madera community.

“We expect to do something in the winter time, maybe a coats for kids giveaway,” he said.