2023-07-16 05:10:01
Posted 1:10 a.m. Updated 5:00 a.m.
With inflation, the increase in the price of rents and the rise in the key rate, organizations that help families equip themselves for the next school year are already seeing demand jump. More and more “new poor” find themselves in a precarious situation, we note with concern.
At the Regroupement Partage, where we have been carrying out Operation backpack every start of the school year since 2012, we are facing an “unprecedented” situation, explains its general manager Audrey Renaud.
The organization estimates that it answers about 10% of requests from families who want help equipping their children in time for school. We provide backpacks, school supplies and lunch boxes.
We are seeing more and more people who until very recently had “relatively healthy finances” and who now have to choose between food and housing, explains Ms. Renaud.
To identify so many people from [la] middle class who are asking for help, it’s a radical change and it’s very worrying.
Audrey Renaud, Executive Director of Operation Backpack
Last year alone, we observed a 49% increase in new requests, that is, from people who had never used the services of Regroupement Partage.
“It’s a mix of people who were already in precariousness, newcomers and the completely deprived middle class,” says Audrey Renaud. If all goes as planned, the organization intends to provide at least 7,000 backpacks this year, about 500 more than last year.
Each family whose child receives a new backpack also leaves with a full grocery store to “relieve the financial burden of the start of the school year”, specifies Audrey Renaud.
The bill goes up very quickly
$3 erasers, $6 colored pencils, compulsory textbooks: when the list of school supplies arrives, the bill goes up very quickly.
Francine Laplante, known as the “Starry Godmother”, launched her first backpack donation campaign three years ago. It distributes bags in underprivileged schools.
This year, the demand is such that there “is no limit” to what she could give, she says.
The limit is what the donations it receives allow it to do. Last week, the one who describes herself as a “professional collector” had collected what was needed to equip 650 children, but was confident in the possibility of reaching 1,000 well-filled backpacks by the official distribution, at the mid August.
Each bag costs her between $50 and $60, a reduced price because she buys in large quantities.
“I put everything. In high school, I go as far as the scientific calculator. We put the geometry kit, colored pencils, notebooks, scissors…”, lists Ms. Laplante.
She expects a price increase of a “minimum” of 15% this year on school items.
These backpacks donated to various schools, “it really meets the needs,” says Francine Laplante. And these needs are obvious, she adds.
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