A partnership between Absolute Comfort Control Services, the United Way/Centraide Windsor-Essex Chatham-Kent and Windsor City FC Soccer to support kids and their families.
The 2nd Annual United Way's Backpacks for Success Drive is taking place at Windsor City FC game on Friday night.
Absolute Comfort Control Services will have a truck at the game that they'll be looking to stuff by collecting school supplies in support of United Way's Backpacks for Success Program.
The Backpacks for Success program provides students in kindergarten through grade 12 in Windsor-Essex County with backpacks led with grade-appropriate supplies.
Backpacks will be distributed to students through United Way and other local community programs this year.
Those involved are inviting the public to collect and bring new backpacks and school supplies - lined paper, pens, pencils, coloured pencils, erasers, pencil cases, binders, scientific calculators, etc. - to the event.
Monetary donations will be accepted as well.
Rachel Meeke, Relationship Manager at the United Way, says a colleague from Absolute Comfort reached out about a potential potential partnership and the rest was history.
"They jumped on the idea of doing a Stuff-the-Truck as well as having the opportunity to bring people out and raise a little bit of awareness for the Windsor City FC soccer team. Absolute has been a great partner, last year I think we had over 1,500 to 2,000 supplies including some backpacks donated through this event."
Meeke says overall for the entire program they're looking to collect 2,000 back packs, and events like these really help with those numbers as well as other supplies.
"So for the younger kids we had lots of markers, coloured pencils, notebooks, things like that. We're hoping this year that we'll do at least 2,000 backpacks again. And then last year with donations we actually were able to top that up to almost 2,500, so we're hoping to be able to do 2,500 for the whole program this year."
Still amidst an unaffordability crisis, a lot of focus has been on the demand for food, but Meeke says there's also a huge demand for things like back to school supplies for families.
She says anyone who has kids in school right now has started to receive lists of what they'll need for back to school, and it's a long list.
"A lot of families accessing this program have multiple children in school age. We never really get as much as we need, the need is great in the community, food and school supplies are some of the first things families will look to not really spend on if they're facing any financial barriers."
Friday night's game starts at 7 p.m. at the St. Clair College Acumen Stadium located at 2000 Talbot Road.
Tickets are $10 and admission for kids under 13 is free.
Windsor City FC is part of League1 Ontario Premier Division, a semi-professional province-wide league.
United Way's goal is to fill 2,000 backpacks with school supplies by August 12.