Mound Bayou group plans backpack giveaway for local families
Arnetha Chapter No. 54 and the Mound Bayou R.I.S.E. Foundation handed out free backpacks July 9, easing school-start costs in a town of 1,449.
Families in Mound Bayou and nearby communities got a school-start boost July 9 when Arnetha Chapter No. 54 joined with the Mound Bayou R.I.S.E. Foundation to hand out free backpacks and school supplies. The giveaway was aimed at helping local children start class with the basics without adding another expense to already stretched household budgets.
The effort carried added weight in a town the city says was founded in 1887 and is known as The Jewel of the Delta. North Bolivar Consolidated School District lists C.E. Hall Elementary in Mound Bayou at 202 E. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street and Northside High in Shelby at 1305 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., a reminder that the district serves families across a wider stretch of the Delta than the city line alone suggests.
That matters in a community of 1,449 people. A publicly available poverty profile puts Mound Bayou’s poverty rate at 44.5% in 2023, more than double Mississippi’s 18.0% rate. The school-supply bill lands on top of other seasonal costs, and national back-to-school research shows how quickly it adds up. The National Retail Federation has tracked annual back-to-school shopping surveys since 2003, while PwC found that three out of four families spend at least $100 on clothing and shoes, with average household spending at $278 and technology averaging $222.
The groups behind the giveaway are both relatively new parts of the local civic landscape. Mound Bayou R.I.S.E. Foundation was filed April 29, 2026, as a Mississippi domestic nonprofit corporation, with stated purposes that include community food services, other individual and family services, and educational support services. Arnetha Chapter No. 54 was established in Mississippi on Aug. 8, 2025, and Arnetha Davis is listed as its agent.
Together, the two organizations put a practical, neighbor-to-neighbor response in place for families trying to get children ready for school. In a town where the numbers show how tight the margins are, even a backpack full of supplies can make the first day of class easier to meet.
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