Backpacks. But without the textbooks and notepads that usually pile up in a student’s school bag.
In the backpacks being dished out by Hollyburn Family Services to North Shore youth in need, you might find a water bottle, a warm pair of socks, gloves, granola bars and personal hygiene products.
And perhaps littered throughout one might find a gift card or two, a means for a homeless youth to give a quick swipe and in return receive a warm drink or a sandwich while they’re going about their day, trying to improve their situation as best they can.
“For a homeless youth to even get a gift card, even if there’s five dollars on it … it just really normalizes it, so it’s like, ‘I can just fit in,’” says Joy Hayden, co-ordinator of innovation and engagement at Hollyburn Family Services. “You might look and not realize that that kid’s homeless but he or she is certainly aware of it.”
For the past few weeks, Hollyburn has been providing youth at the organization’s safe house backpacks like this, part of a partnership with the Project Backpack community service campaign that serves much of the Vancouver area.
The purpose of the program is to get youth to help homeless youth, something that hugely benefits young people in a difficult situation. And for the youth helping to fill the backpacks, there awaits a valuable lesson in empathy.
Here’s how it works: Project Backpack donates the backpacks to participating schools, students fill up the backpacks with items they think will help a homeless youth survive, and then the backpacks are distributed to youth social service organizations throughout town.
When a homeless youth stops by one of these organizations, such as Hollyburn, they can walk away with a brand new backpack.
It’s a simple premise, but one that has the tremendous potential to let a youth who is experiencing hard times know that someone out there cares and wants to help.
“It’s just those little, little pieces that really just make a significant difference,” Hayden explains.
Some participating schools this year include Mountainside Secondary, Mulgrave School, and Southridge School in Surrey.
These three schools have been putting together backpacks that have either gone or will be going to Hollyburn for distribution over the coming weeks and months.
“I think it’s just awesome that we could have youth helping youth and two non-profit organizations just working together for the same good,” Hayden says.
The program also helps students empathize with young people experiencing a vastly different situation than their own, she explains.
Prior to the program, Project Backpack representatives go into classrooms and explain what they do while presenting a hard look at what life for a homeless youth might be like.
“I can’t help but think that sometimes those kids go home after hearing the presentations from Project Backpack and go, ‘OK, not so bad at home. Not so bad,’” Hayden says.
Hollyburn’s youth safe house serves between 110 and 150 homeless youth – generally between the ages of 14 and 18 – every year, according to Hayden.
Youth homelessness on the North Shore is often a result of a disruption in family life, but mental health issues and difficulties accessing safe, affordable housing also contribute, she says.
Project Backpack campaign helps provide these youth with much-needed essential items and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of normalcy.
Students from North Vancouver’s Mountainside Secondary even found a way to add some hand-sewn pyjamas into their most recent batch of backpacks.
“I think when the kids come to the safe house they pretty much are wearing everything that they own,” Hayden says.
“For the kids to receive something that other kids have made is just pretty cool.”
