by Jen Crespi

I still remember my excitement when my mom gave me a 12-pack of Laurentian pencil crayons that day. I was going into Grade Two; I was a big kid now. No more wax crayons for me!

I remember sharpening them with extra care on the wall-mounted sharpener in my dad’s workshop, then packing them (together with a pristine new eraser) into my little tin pencil case. I think I might have had a new Thermos that year, too, but it wasn’t as exciting as those pencil crayons.

I can only imagine what it feels like to be a child whose family can’t afford new school supplies in September. They might have to make do with the discarded cast-offs of an older sibling. They might be fortunate enough to have a teacher who notices they have no supplies of their own, and gives them what they need. Or they might simply have to do without.

Across Ontario, a number of charities and organizations have been working hard over the summer to provide low-income children with the back-to-school essentials they require. In Ottawa, for example, The Christmas Exchange/Le Partage Noël operates a School Supplies Assistance Program for local children in low-income households, and families are asked to register by calling 211. More than 2,800 children were enrolled in the program as of August, with many more registrations expected before the beginning of the school year.

In Huron County, there’s a Backpacks for Kids Program that serves families living at or below the poverty line, while in Bruce Grey the United Way organizes a Backpack Program that, as with the Ottawa program, uses 211 as a registration conduit.

According to Bruce MacPherson, a board member of the Bruce Grey United Way, the backpacks do more than reduce the financial burden on families that are already struggling to get by. “Receiving an anonymous backpack on the first day of school filled with school supplies helps to level the playing field,” he observes. This, he says, “reduces the changes of a child feeling singled out or embarrassed because they do not have a backpack.”

Volunteer Brent Jeffries and Bruce McPherson, Director of Education for the Bruce-Grey Catholic District School Board load the truck to deliver 500 backpacks to those children affected in Goderich's tornado

Image courtesy of Francesca Dobbyn. More photos here.

Read more about the Backpacks for Goderich effort here.

211 information and referral specialists across Ontario are the best source of information on school-supplies programs: not only is it the registration point for a number of programs, but 211’s information and referral specialists can also point callers to other sources of aid in their region. Pam Hillier, Executive Director of 211 Central East Region, says that 211 is able to provide referrals to programs that many families simply “don’t realize are there.”

If you know a child who is in need of school supplies this September, encourage their parents or guardian to call 2-1-1 and ask about backpack programs in their region – because every child should have the chance to go to school with a brand-new set of pencil crayons in their backpack.