Salvation Army program gets kids ready for school
The need for school supplies has increased over the years, making the annual Salvation Army backpack program an important service.
“We do what we can to let the parents free up a little bit of money. This isn’t a total list of what they need for supplies, but it’s a good start,” said Val Wicks, program director for Salvation Army Regina branch.
Tuesday morning, the Salvation Army and local Saskatchewan Party MLAs Laura Ross and Muhammad Fiaz joined to finish packing backpacks with school supplies for the program.
“We know for a lot of families there’s a real challenge in going back to school, not just the excitement of changing out of summertime, but in fact being able to obtain supplies for their kids,” Ross said.
This year, 1,033 backpacks will be distributed. Planning for the campaign began months in advance. Some supplies are ordered at the start of July with money from the Salvation Army’s client assistance fund that comes from the Christmas Kettle campaign.
Starting the Tuesday after the August long weekend, donation buckets are placed around the community and families start applying to receive backpacks.
Each backpack is outfitted with the essentials, including paper, pencils, glue, crayons or markers, folders and an eraser. Depending on the age group, the children may also receive a binder. If there are donated supplies such as scissors, calculators or geometry sets, those are included as well.
“By giving (kids) a backpack full of new supplies, it makes them excited about being in school and that’s step one to their education that will then better them in the future,” Wicks said.
The Salvation Army started running the program in 2008 and since then there has been an increase in the numbers of backpacks distributed. Four years ago the organization was handing out 175 backpacks. That jumped to 700 the following year and to more than 1,000 this year.
The economic downturn in Saskatchewan has been a factor in this increase.
“It becomes where does the parent choose: Do they buy shoes or do they buy paper? Well, we can’t buy shoes for all the kids, but we can make sure that they get paper,” Wicks said.
The Syrian refugee families who arrived in Canada earlier this year also helped raise this year’s number of backpacks needed.
“I’ve seen probably about 75 to 100 families of Syrian refugees come in with people from the (Regina Open Door Society) because, of course, language is a barrier,” Wicks said.
The distribution of backpacks started Tuesday afternoon.