Saskatoon Salvation Army helping kids going back to school

Saskatoon’s Salvation Army wants to make sure students are ready for the school year.

It has 1300 backpacks available for the students, just in time for the start of the school year.

The organization told 650 CKOM’s Brent Loucks recently that they had seen a 20 per cent increase in families applying for the Back to School Supply Program.

Matt Hoeft, Director of Community Services for The Salvation Army in Saskatoon, is happy to give families one less thing to worry about.

“There are a lot of challenges for people this year, we are happy to be able to take away at least one stressor from people,” Hoeft said.

The program, which is focused on gathering school supplies for families in need, was started in 2013. The previous application limit was 1000, but this year the organization felt it was necessary to raise the limit to 1300.

“There were at least 300 more people that needed it this year. We have been very busy,” he said. “There was almost 40 thousand pieces of school supplies this year.”

“It’s what we are here for.”

Binders, pencil crayons and pencil cases are just some of the back to school essentials that can be found in the backpacks.