We were lucky to catch up with Baily Cowart recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Baily thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

My elementary school sent home a letter asking for donations for our nurses office to support students that may have accidents and did not have access to a change of clothes. I asked my parents why the school would ask for things like this. They explained to me that some families are not as fortunate as ours and if we could, we should help out. I asked if this meant some kids didn’t have their own crayons. She said yes, and I wanted to help. I had a sweet tea stand to raise money and my first donation was to Birnham woods elementary school. After that, each year around my birthday I asked our family and friends to donate school supplies so we could provide them to schools that needed them. A good family friend worked at a low income middle school and that was our first donation, Grangerland Intermediate School. Each year we have grown and in 2019 we became a 501c3 charity. Since then we have experienced huge growth and supported over 1200 students in 2023 at 15 campuses.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

BE Blessed provides school supplies, hygiene kits, shoes and scholarships to Conroe ISD low income schools.

I think starting as a 6 year old and helping my peers and continuing to grow my charity sets me apart from others.

I am the most proud of the fact that over the years I have been able to help over 2,900 students since I have been donating supplies.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

There have been several times we have set goals we didn’t think we could meet. For example, the year we donated 850 sets of supplies was in 2021. My mom got COVID and was really sick. We had to postpone packing and delivery days because she was still very sick. It took a lot of communication with our schools and volunteers but we were able to make it successful. We had over 40 people show up and help us get everything taken care of. They even helped us clean the whole house to ease the burden on my mom after all the bags were packed. There have been times we miscounted inventory and have made pleas on social media. On each occasion, our community has come through in big ways to ensure that we have everything we need to help the students in our district.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Every year our biggest day of the year is packing day. That is when we take a year’s worth of donated supplies and transport them, unload, and pack our backpacks. This event has grown from a few volunteers in our home to dozens of helpers, and 5 trailers to transport everything. Packing day is also usually in Late July or early August meaning it is extremely HOT. We have to show resilience in order to plan for this day and execute it. We usually deliver to our schools 2 days after packing day so it is very important it runs smoothly. Also, packing day is now spread out over 2 days because there is so much to transport and set up.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bailysbackpacks.org
• Instagram: @bailys_backpacks
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bailysbackpacks

Image Credits
Stephanie Cowart