DUKE Heights Back2School Backpack Drive 2021 put smiles on 700 faces!

September 1, 2021

During the last week of August 2021, DUKE Heights Business Improvement Area worked with the local City Councillors to present two separate backpack drives for the York Centre and Humber River-Black Creek communities. Our sincere gratitude to Upper Crust for generously supporting us by sponsoring 700 backpacks.

On Monday, August 30, 2021, our backpack- and school supplies giveaway took place at the Downsview Park. Thanks to the City Councillor James Pasternak and his staff for organizing a Back2School event for the ward 6 residents. The team invited families to gather in the Downsview Park as we gave away about 350 backpacks filled with notebooks, coloring pens, pencils, crayons, math sets, and more to school-age children from the Humber River Black-Creek community.

Our backpack drive to help distribute supplies and prepare students for back-to-school continued until Wednesday, September 01, 2021, at the Fountainhead Park located at 445 Sentinel Road with help from the City Councillor Anthony Perruzza and his staff. We distributed another 350 backpacks among families from the York Centre area. The local MPP, Tom Rakocevic also joined us for the event.

We recognize that while we all are working together to recover from the pandemic, back to school supplies can be a financial burden for many families, especially if there has been a loss of income since last year due to the pandemic. Our Backpack Drive initiative was an attempt to relieve some of that burden and support the students who are going back to school this September.