The USW Local 9346 — Women of Steel — made a sizeable donation recently as part of our 10th annual Back to School Backpacks Campaign.
This year we provided 99 backpacks full of the needed school supplies to underprivileged kids in the Crowsnest Pass, Sparwood, Elkford, Fernie and Jaffray. 30 packs went to the CNP, 37 went to the Sparwood Food Bank, and 32 to the Fernie Women’s Resource Centre.
We talk to the food banks, women’s shelters, and school administration to determine the need. We never meet or publicize the names or identities of the kids or their families, we are just given numbers for how many boys and how many girls in each grade for each school that need a backpack. We get the class school supplies list for each grade from each school and fill up the backpacks accordingly. The full packs are then distributed back to the food banks, women’s shelter, and schools for distribution to each child.
Pictured above: The USW Local 9346 — Women of Steel — made a sizeable donation recently as part of our 10th annual Back to School Backpacks Campaign to the Fernie Women’s Resource Centre
Our Mandate is to have “All Kid’s Equal on the First Day.” We have been honoured to set kids up for success in our communities for the last 10 years.
We would like to thank Elkview for their generous donation and permission to do a payroll deduction for employees to contribute to this campaign this year. Also our District office out of Vancouver made a generous donation this year again towards this campaign. We also received a donation of 36 backpacks from GTSI Promotional Products and Corporate Wear. Lastly, we have been selling Women of Steel Hoodies and $10 from each hoodie sale goes towards this campaign. The program cost over $9000 this year.
Normally we fundraise by doing Bus Stop BBQ’s at the Elkview parking lot – selling burgers and a pop to the miners coming on and going off shift as well as the International Women’s Day of Golf fundraiser at the Sparwood Golf Club but due to COVID we have not been able to do that the last couple of years, so these donations from Elkview, the USW and GTSI Promotional were able to allow us to continue the program this year. We thank them greatly for their contributions.