Newtown Junior Women’s Club Packs Backpacks

By Eliza Hallabeck

Backpacks were stuffed full with new supplies this past Tuesday at the Newtown Meeting House on Main Street for the Newtown Junior Women’s Club annual Back-To-School Backpack Program.

At 3 pm Marya Gaiser met with her daughter and a friend to start packing 73 backpacks, and other members of the Newtown Junior Women’s Club and volunteers met up with them later at night to help. Ms Gaiser said the Newtown Junior Women’s Club has been packing bags for children of low-income families that are having difficulty financing the start of their the school year for ten years.

The club receives a list of students in need from Social Services, but the list does not have names on it. The students are kept anonymous. The list also includes all of the supplies the children will need in order to get through the school year, and the grade they are going into. This way, Ms Gaiser said, they know what type of bag to stuff for the students.

The backpacks were purchased through the Social Services from a company called EPI. The bags are $6.95 each, and they can only be purchased in quantities of 12. In total the club spent about $500 for the bags, according to Ms Gaiser.

The supplies that pack the bags have not been paid for yet, and Marya said the club expects to raise the money for a reiumbursement through a donation event that will be at Newtown Savings Bank in Sand Hill Plaza this weekend. She said the club normally spends about $1,500 a year on the backpacks.

“All that money is donated or raised,” said Ms Gaiser