Backpacks of Love and School Supplies in Greenwich

Hundreds of Greenwich elementary and middle school students will be starting off the school year just right come Tuesday — thanks to the Greenwich Rotary.

Students and their parents lined the third-floor hallway of Greenwich Town Hall Friday to pick up backpacks filled with most of the school supplies they’ll need.

The pickup was the culmination of a joint effort by Rotarians and the Greenwich Social Services Department who have partnered for the past several years to provide less fortunate students with the tools they need for school — from pencils, Crayons and composition books to calculators. Students receiving the school supplies are identified by Social Services.

“They will have 85 percent of the school supplies they will need from kindergarten to eighth grade,” said John Jee, the Rotary’s community projects chairman, as children picked out their age-appropriate backpacks in the Town Hall conference room. For the littlest learners, there were brightly-colored backpacks decorated with cartoon characters including Sponge Bob and Minnie Mouse, to more subdued herring-bone tones for seventh- and eighth-grade students. Each were filled with necessary supplies as identified by the schools.

According to Jee, the Rotary underwrote the cost of the supplies that were bought at deep discounts from local retailers Walmart, Target, the Staples store in Riverside, and LL Bean which sold their backpacks at half-price.

“We had an assembly line going … we had 800 pencils; more than 3,000 pieces” that were packed into the LL Bean backpacks, Jee said. In total, there were 238 backpacks given to the students. “It’s all top brand names so it fits in” and doesn’t label the children has having received a helping hand, Jee added. He estimated the Rotary paid about $35 for the backpacks and supplies that are worth about $100.

“This makes me feel very good and very happy,” said Cynthia Pretel whose three daughters attend New Lebanon School.

Jee says the backpack program is just one of several educational programs the Rotary supports in the Greenwich community.

Come October, the Rotary will continue a literacy program it began a decade ago — donating a thesaurus and dictionary to every third-grade student in Greenwich Public Schools “regardless of need,” Jee said.

“Kids have iPads, but we want them to learn by looking up words — using books,” Jee said. The reference books are distributed during an assembly held in each school in which the love of language arts and reading are discussed.

The Rotary also supports the Reading is Fundamental program and provides funding that enables schools such as Julian Curtiss Elementary to receive federal Title 1 funding, Jee said. The Rotary and the only independent book store in Greenwich, Diane’s Books each provide about $3,500 in order to qualify for federal funding for reading programs.

The Rotary also works with the Greenwich United Way and that organization’s Reading Champions program which pairs about 100 volunteer mentors with students at the Byram Archibald Neighborhood Center and the Boys and Girls Club Greenwich.

Photo: a Greenwich parent selects a backpack for her child at the Greenwich Rotary and Greenwich Social Services school supply giveaway on Aug. 22, 2014. Credit: Barbara Heins.