Monday, August 16, was backpack delivery day for HCEF. Over 2500 backpacks were delivered to homeless residential housing agencies on this day, with 1000 more having been picked up or delivered the preceding week.
Sarah Keisel and her toddler son were there to cheer on the volunteers as they loaded the buses with large-sized bag after bag of fully stocked backpacks. A sufficient number of filled backpacks would be provided to each facility so that children moving to an agency at any time during the school year will have new backpacks of their own. Steeler defensive end Brett, Honorary Chair of the event with Sarah, was fully engaged at the Steelers St. Vincent training camp after a winning pre-season game. Watch Brett's earlier appearance on Pittsburgh Live Today as he spoke about HCEF and Gear for Grades and be sure to join Brett for a guided tour of the Steelers Southside Practice Facility.
Citizens Bank and HCEF had conducted a county-wide drive designed to ensure that on that important first day of school every child living in supportive housing for families has a brand new backpack filled with all the required educational supplies. HCEF partner Glaxo Smith Kline provided 300 large backpacks suitable for the middle and high school students, with individual donors, community organizations, and area businesses donating supplies appropriate to the classroom needs of these young people: folders, 3-ring binders, spiral notebooks, calculators, scissors, ruled paper, pens and pencils, pencil boxes, erasers, pencil sharpeners, markers, and rulers. Among these were employees of PWC Property Solutions, ALCOSAN, and MetLife as well as members of the local Alpha Delta Kappa chapter.
While giving a fully supplied backpack to a child may seem a modest gesture, for the child receiving it that book bag is a proud possession. With it, the child is just another boy or girl going to school, ready to learn. For a struggling mother there is tremendous relief in knowing her child will have the required school supplies she might not be able easily to provide.
Notes of thanks – like these from two of the family centers – tell the story:
"Thank you for allowing our kids to feel good about the first day of school."
"What joy around here today! These absolutely wonderful school bags arrived. Our children will be over the moon!"
We applaud the following individuals who donated backpacks and supplies, who filled backpacks, who helped with loading the schools buses, and who traveled on the buses to eagerly waiting children and youths:
Bryan Acord
Caitlyn Bersyk
Greg and Nicky Broujos
Heather DiRisio
Joanne, Ellen, and Liz Galardi
Nicole Holman
Stephanie Hornberg
Sydney and Stacy Krauth and their "come to a party and bring a backpack" event
Derek Kwait
Carly Mathisen
Ryan Noel
the unnumbered folks who made donation through Citizens Bank and directly to HCEF
and HCEF staff members Laura Bailey, Carlin Christy, Susy Robison, Bill Wolfe
Thanks also to Trinity Cathedral's Rev. Canon Catherine Brall who approved the three-weeks' storage of backpacks and supplies donated through HCEF as well as to Jim Cole and Bill O’Brien for their most generous help.
HCEF is grateful also to the Omni William Penn Hotel for once again loaning us two large laundry carts that make the up-hill move of supplies from the Cathedral to the Bank manageable and, in particular, to Jim Boyd who took the empty carts to the Cathedral and also helped push/pull the fully-loaded carts up Oliver Street to the Citizens Bank Building — not just once, but twice.
See Part One of the 2010 Gear for Grades photo story.
(8/16/10)
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