Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall and Toronto Maple Leafs captain John Tavares kicked off the PIE Education Backpack Campaign on Wednesday evening.
The event, hosted by PIE Wood Fired Pizza on Victoria Street in Barrie, is the launch of the 14th annual campaign, which provides school supplies and back-to-school necessities to underprivileged children across the region.
This year’s initiative aims to distribute 7,500 backpacks throughout Barrie, Rexdale, Sudbury, Christian Island and Ottawa through PIE Education, the John Tavares Foundation, and Progress for Mental Health, “ensuring that children in need start the upcoming school year on the path to success.”
“We did it last year and it went a long way, so it’s nice to do it again, to give kids the necessary resources to be able to learn, find things they’re passionate about, and help inspire them to have the ability to be creative,” Tavares told BarrieToday at the event.
“My wife (Aryne Fuller) puts a lot of hard work into this and is the heart and soul of this foundation. We are always looking for new and different opportunities for us to give back.”
The event saw Tavares meeting kids and filling backpacks with school supplies alongside Nuttall.
More than 23 businesses and entities are donating backpacks for children all over Ontario, Nuttall said.
“It’s over double the size of what we did last year,” he added.
Kids missing school supplies puts them a step behind on their learning path.
“It’s a huge issue, and so we want to make sure that we have all that they need to succeed in the classroom,” Nuttall said.
More information about the campaign can be found here.
