AHG Has Your Back

AHG Has Your Back is an annual back-to-school backpack program created by Ascend Hospitality Group. The program provides underserved children with a one-of-a-kind, custom-designed backpack experience for the back-to-school season. Each year, AHG collaborates with a celebrity partner to create an unforgettable program for students whom need it the most.

For the inaugural year of AHG Has Your Back, AHG partnered with former Seahawk and Super Bowl champion Cliff Avril and the Cliff Avril Family Foundation. Through the program, 250 students received a custom backpack designed by Avril himself, including essential school supplies provided by AHG and program sponsor Amazon, as well as USDA-approved grocery shopping lists and nutritional guides, healthy recipes, and food education activity sheets, plus a $25 gift card to shop at any Amazon Fresh grocery store location. Watch the “making of” the 2021 AHG Has Your Back backpack and learn more here.

For 2022, AHG and Amazon partnered with international popstar Ciara and her Why Not You Foundation to double the numbers, benefitting 500 students in need with Dare to Roam backpacks and a block party at the Amazon Fresh store in Bellevue, Washington, all to ring in the new school year In addition to hosting the backpack experience for Ciara’s Why Not You Academy students, AHG Has Your Back also partnered with six other Seattle-area nonprofits focused on providing historically marginalized youth with opportunity, with the intent to send these students back to school with confidence.

In 2023, AHG and Amazon recruited a team of “Seattle Sports Legends” — from Bobby Wagner of the Seahawks to Chance Fry from the Sounders and mascot Doppler of the Seattle Storm — to host a parking lot party once again at the Amazon Fresh store, benefiting six Seattle-area nonprofits and getting packs on the backs of 700 students for the school year.