With a little over a week before the kids return to the classroom, a charity drive that aims to send students in need back to school with a backpack full of supplies needs some help.
The sixth annual Rock Back to School campaign has collected roughly 2,000 school essential stuffed bags. That is only half of the 4,000 the group of local businesses behind the campaign had hoped to get.
Organized by Classic Rock 98.1, Preferred Insurance, Real Canadian Superstore, Molly Maid, Exodus Escape Rooms, the Salvation Army, and the Thames Valley Education Foundation, Rock Back to School asks the public to donate new school supplies. The donated items, such as lunchboxes, calculators, pens, pencil crayons, paper, and binders are then stuffed inside of donated backpacks by volunteers and distributed to kids in need within the Thames Valley District School Board and London District Catholic School Board.
"Lunch bags, pencil crayons, elementary school backpacks are in high demand, and so those are items we are really hoping that people will donate," said Becky Malacaria, Classic Rock 98.1 Marketing Manager. "Cash works as well. Cash at the till at Real Canadian Superstore will allow us to purchase whatever is not donated and whatever is needed most come September 4th."
The back-to-school charity drive is meant to help students in kindergarten all the way to Grade 12. Principals at each of the region’s schools will be in charge of handing out the supply-filled backpacks to students on the first day of school. Any family in need of assistance is urged to contact their school principal.
Donations for the Rock Back to School campaign can be dropped off until September 3 at the Salvation Army, Preferred Insurance, and Real Canadian Superstores in London, St. Thomas, and Strathroy.
