Starting this week, HOPE House is distributing over a thousand school bags filled with school supplies for its annual Guelph Community Backpack Project.
For a second year in a row, the program used an online registration form to allow families to fill in requests for bags at their convenience. HOPE House’s executive director Jaya James said the program was able to distribute 1,600 bags last year and is on track to distribute roughly the same number of bags this year.
James said many backpack pickups are taking place at neighborhood groups this week. “Onward Willow Neighbourhood Group has the largest number of pickups, almost 500 are going to be happening on that site,” said James.
She said the 1,600 backpacks going out this year represents 749 families.
“Every backpack has supplies based on what we were provided by the Upper Grand District School Board that a student would need,” said James, adding that the supplies are specific to each grade level from Kindergarten to Grade 12 and includes items such as binders, lunch boxes, crayons, pens, pencils and glue sticks.
Families submitted applications to request a bag at the end of June until the end of July. James said each bag cost HOPE House roughly $25 after some putting together donated supplies and getting good discounts for items.
This year, the program had three sponsors: Clayson Wealth Management, Skyline Group of Companies and Royal City Tree Care.
James said HOPE House saw an increase in the number of backpacks that went out last year by 200 but has maintained the number this year.
“Last year we went from 1,400 to 1,600 and this year we've maintained that 1,600 level,” said James.
“The backpack project is really critically important because we know that one of the best tools to fight poverty is a full education. And we know that in order to have a great education you need to have the tools to help you learn in the classroom and this helps to eliminate the disparities and inequalities between kids from families that have more financial resources and those that have less.”
