THUNDER BAY – With school just around the corner, many students have already started back-to-school shopping, looking for the hottest school supplies on the market.
That’s not the reality for some youngsters in Thunder Bay, whose parents simply can’t afford to buy a new backpack, notebooks or coloured pencils.
Thanks to the Thunder Bay Boys and Girls Club, Scholars Education and Santin Chiropractic, it’s one less thing they’ll have to worry about when September rolls around.
Carla Santin, who operates Santin Chiropractic, and her staff set a goal to collect supplies to fill at least 30 backpacks to distribute to students who otherwise might go without.
They met that and more, she said.
“Our goal was to fill 30 backpacks, that we bought as a practice. Our practice members and patients were to fill those bags with the supplies. We collected cash donations, probably close to $800 and we reached our goal,” Santin said.
“So we filled our 30 packs and then some.”
It was important to both Santin and her staff and their clients to help out children in need.
“We feel fortunate. When my kids go back to school they don’t think twice about the backpack they have to buy. But we know there are so many kids in need and there will be kids that show up to school, not only without a lunch, but they don’t have a bag to bring supplies with,” Santin said.
“We just feel it’s something easy that we can do to help those kids.”
Lee-Ann Skirving, a program director at the Thunder Bay Boys and Girls Club, said the donation is simply amazing.
“It means so much to the kids and to the families – especially to the families who don’t have the money to go out and buy brand new school supplies and backpacks,” Skirving said. “Those are the families that we really give these to and that really, really appreciate it.”
It’s one less burden for the families at the start of the school year, she added.
The backpacks will be doled out to students during the Boys and Girls Club’s annual open house next week, with any extras dropped off at local area schools.
