BizEnrich CEO, Berry Zimmerman is looking to have an impact on his community and not just from a business standpoint.

Zimmerman joined other members of BizEnrich, a membership organization of independent experts, Friday to spend the morning stuffing backpacks full of school supplies for foster kids all over Western Washington. The community service project was in partnership with Olive Crest, an organization dedicated to preventing child abuse, treating and educating at-risk children and to preserving the family through foster care.

According to Olive Crest, there are 514,000 children living in the foster care system nationally and more than 10,000 of those children live in Washington.

“Family is very important to my heart and this is where it all starts,” said BizEnrich member Lauren Owen, a local family business consultant. “The people who work with these kids as foster families are just amazing. We can’t all be foster parents, but we can all help out in some way or another.”

A group of roughly 10 BizEnrich members volunteered their time, sorting through the donated school supplies and creating back-to-school backpacks filled with binders, paper, pencils, rulers, stickers, and crayons. Each member was given a checklist to ensure each backpack was equipped with all the essentials a child would need for the first day of school.

Once the backpacks were ready, the members tied a name tag on the zipper for a foster child to receive.

“We wanted to make sure these kids have all the advantages they need to have a successful school year,” said Zimmerman. “Packing school supplies for them is one small way we can show our support.”

Lindsay Larin can be reached at 425.453.4602.

To learn more about Olive Crest and ways to help a foster child, visit www.olivecrest.org. For more on BizEnrich, visit www.bizenrich.com.