Thousands of Chicago children will head back to school with a backpack bursting with free supplies thanks to an effort in the South Loop on Wednesday.
About 800 corporate volunteers gathered on the floor at Wintrust Arena to stuff 36,000 backpacks, nearly half of the 80,000 backpacks that Cradles to Crayons plans to distribute at no cost to Chicagoland students.
Dawn Melchiorre is executive director of Cradles to Crayons Chicago and told WBBM, "mostly Chicago Public Schools kids" will get the backpacks, "but (the backpacks) also go out to various places throughout the city and suburbs."
She said the backpacks were filled with "...folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, colored pencils, erasers, all the things a child needs."
Bernice Phillips works for Boeing, and left the office for the day to fill backpacks, and was one of those on the "assembly line," telling WBBM, "we know that there is a dire need for school supplies for students, as we have one-in-two students who are living under the poverty line in Chicago, and so we are happy to give back in this way."
Amazon was also among the many corporations that donated funds to buy the school supplies and whose employees gave their time.
Several corporations join the effort
Several corporations join the effort
