Okotoks volunteers stuffing the bus

Okotoks volunteer organizations have come together to support families getting ready for back-to-school.

MyCityCare is running its annual Stuff the Bus campaign, and this year it has joined forces with the Okotoks Family Resource Centre, Kiwanis Club and Okotoks Rotary Club to put together backpacks and other student needs for the beginning of the 2020-21 year.

In addition, Staples and Walmart have chipped in, supplying surplus inventory to the campaign worth more than $20,000. Staples Okotoks is also collecting donations at the till, as it has in previous years, to provide gift cards to families that may need a little extra help.

Katie Burrell, organizer of the Stuff the Bus campaign and MyCityCare representative, said donations have been collected year-round and items provided by community members are now being collected at Trident Auto Wash and Mainstreet Market in Okotoks.

There were just over 100 students signed up for backpacks as of Aug. 13, and Burrell expects that number will climb above 300.

“We usually get registrations well into September because people might go to school and then realize they don’t have supplies and start looking then,” she said. “The last two weeks we get about four or five registrations a day.”

The campaign has come a long way in four years, when it began with a group from MyCityCare meeting in a basement to put together a few bags, she said.

In fall 2019, Stuff the Bus helped 71 students but Burrell anticipates more, especially with COVID-19 changing the financial situation for many families. Agencies in the area have also started referring families from the Foothills community, including Turner Valley, High River and the County.

Registrations include the child’s name, school and gender and backpacks are then filled by volunteers according to the needs of each student. Each Sunday, families can pull up to the Foothills Centennial Centre during an allotted time to pick up their bags.

Donations are always being accepted, and if anything is leftover it is stored until next fall, she said.

“We’re definitely still looking for donations,” said Burrell. “Lysol wipes, which are hard to get, they’re on a lot of teachers’ lists. Kleenex boxes, Ziploc bags, things people don’t typically think about when they go shopping for school supplies.”

She said this year, there is a need for items not ordinarily on the list of needs, like headphones, because of the number of students opting for homeschool and online education.

“We’re trying to gauge which students are doing stuff online too, and what they may need,” said Burrell. “We’re possibly looking at doing at-home hampers.”

The backpacks are still being augmented by the Okotoks Family Resource Centre, which provided backpacks or gift cards for school supplies in previous years. It can now provide funds through its partnership with Staples to help families get bigger-ticket items like scientific calculators.

It’s a different way to operate the campaign this year, and Okotoks community wellness manager Debbie Posey said it’s a “wonderful set-up.”

“If there’s another service in town then we try not to duplicate anything,” said Posey. “Sometimes it works where there’s kind of a grassroots program that pops up that does a really good job and we can either work with them or we can transition a program off to a private group in the community.”

The Okotoks Family Resource Centre is operating more as a triage centre, referring people to the Stuff the Bus campaign as necessary, or providing other support or community referrals for one-off needs like a trip to the thrift store to get new clothes, specific calculators or tablets.

She said with all the options and services available families in Okotoks will be well-cared-for this year.

“I think everybody has got stress and everybody wants back-to-school to be as smooth as possible,” said Posey. “There’s already enough stress with the pandemic, so if MyCityCare can make it easy for families to access backpacks and school supplies and get ready to go back to school, make it exciting, then that’s good for families.

“All the partners I think are just pleased to be working together to support families.”

For more information on Stuff the Bus visit www.myvictory.ca/mycitycare.

Krista Conrad, OkotoksToday.ca

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