Volunteers stuff up a storm at Operation Backpack sorting event!
Jan Reeves, of Sacramento Credit Union, was one of the more than 20 volunteers from SCU and Paramount Equity Mortgage who joined Volunteers of America
staff to sort and stuff some 750 backpacks at Aug. 4’s
Operation Backpack 2007 packing event.
 |
Call it “Stuffapalooza.” Volunteers of America’s annual Operation Backpack sorting and packing event saw more than 20 volunteers and staff joining together Aug. 4, 2007, to sort and organize the 1,500 backpacks donated during the 2007 campaign.
Employees of sponsors Paramount Equity Mortgage and Sacramento Credit Union, along with Volunteers of America board members Judy McGarry and Stan Stancell, painstakingly checked each backpack’s contents – comparing them against appropriate school supply lists. When a backpack came up "short," volunteers headed to one of the several tables set up with school supplies and went "shopping" to complete their packs.
By the end of the five-hour session, almost 1,000 backpacks had been completely filled with crayons, binders, pencils, pens, markers, paints, rulers, calculators, erasers and everything else to guarantee first-day-of-school smiles. The remaining 500 backpacks would be completed by staff in the following week.
Operation Backpack 2007, which ended Aug. 3, is Volunteers of America’s community back-to-school drive that puts new backpacks chock full of school supplies into the hands of children in need. For three weeks, more than 55 Sacramento-area businesses hosted collection boxes where the public generously deposited the coolest backpacks ever.
Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Superman, Supergirl, Hello Kitty, Dora
the Explorer and the Transformers adorned many of the packs intended for the
under-12 set, while high-tech bags complete with water bottles and iPod
pockets were featured on those backpacks destined for older
kids. Operation Backpack provides backpacks for children in
pre-kindergarten through high school.
