The United Way Alberta Northwest’s Tools for School program is in desperate need of school supplies to fill the number of bags requested by parents across the region this year. Executive Director Jamie Craig says as the final two days of the drive take place Tuesday and Wednesday, they’re finding themselves in need of items like scissors, exercise books, pencil crayons, graphic paper, and pencil sharpeners.
Craig adds they’re hoping to fill 1,000 backpacks in 2021, noting the need for a helping hand may be greater than ever because of the circumstances the community is facing.
“We’ve got over 1,000 requests this year, and we probably only have enough to fill 600 bags… we have enough backpacks, but everything on that list we are starting to run out of,” she says. “Throughout the next few days, we get a lot of people hearing about the program, and calling us and emailing out… so we usually have a couple hundred [requests] trickle in at the end.”
Craig says anyone who can help out, either with supplies or financial donations, is being asked to head over to Centre 2000, where crews will be on hand until Thursday putting packs together.
“We are constantly running back and forth to Staples working with them to get what we need, but at the end of the day only have so much money to spend, so we really rely on those one-off donations that people drop off,” she adds.
Traditionally, the Tools for School program would go hand in hand with the annual Stuff-A-Bus campaign, which is absent in 2021. The backpacks filled will be handed out to families before the first day of school.
