BSO gives students backpacks

Nodesha Nord arrived at the Oveta McKeithen Recreational Complex in Deerfield Beach with a firm idea of what a rising sixth grader at Deerfield Beach Middle School needed in a backpack.

Inside, some 1,500 backpacks were sorted by type: grade school appropriate, middle school cool, and high school durable. Nord knew that she would need a big backpack, and a good color also would be nice. She got both in a high school backpack in muted sand and grey.

“I can have all my stuff,” she explained.

Deerfield Beach’s Oveta McKeithen Park wasn’t the only northeastern park hosting a Broward Sheriff’s Office back-to-school event recently. Just south, at Pompano Beach’s Apollo Park students lined up to choose from 1,100 backpacks, while in BSO’s Oakland Park district, a July event provided backpacks to 200 students.

Oveta McKeithen Park was festive with BSO volunteers on four veterans of the former equestrian unit. A tent shaded hundreds lunching on hamburgers and hot dogs, and a bounce house reverberated with shrieks nearby.

Two-year-old Valther Andre wandered the field in a backpack large enough to double as a Ninja turtle costume while friends Jounee Godder, 4, and Kimonn Lane, 5, found sno-cones in colors that matched their backpacks and summer outfits.

Providing a finished look as cool as the new backpack, Angel Roca, owner of new era barber shop. The new era staff provided free haircuts to some 75 kids, many too short for the makeshift barber chair. Boosted by seats on suitcases that hours before had transported equipment, some 75 were treated by the four volunteers to whatever style they desired.

“They Google ‘kids hairstyles,’” explained Tazz Armstrong, a stylist with new era. “They know what they want.”

As for the hundreds of backpacks that lay unclaimed at event’s end, they are slated to go to school resource officers to give out as needed.