By all rights, Connie Nelson should have a Ph.D. in backpacks.
She knows how they should fit, which styles are popular, and what materials will last through nine months of abuse. More than anything else about backpacks, she knows how to get good deals on them.
"I don't have a life, I go backpack shopping," Nelson said. "I won't pay more than $5 for a backpack," even though some retail for $50.
Nelson is program director for Spokane Valley Partners, a community center that oversees STCU Smart Start. The program uses seed money from the credit union, along with contributions from businesses, churches and individuals, to provide backpacks filled with school supplies to 1,000 students from families in need.
It is not the only STCU effort to make sure kids have the necessities for starting the school year. Staying true to the credit union's roots as an organization founded by teachers, STCU employees recently donated enough backpacks, binders, pens, crayons and other supplies to fill an SUV.
Several boxes of those supplies went to the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center for distribution in Spokane's East Central Neighborhood. Other boxes went to Garfield Elementary School in Spokane, Children's Village in Coeur d'Alene, and the Bonner Community Food Center in Sandpoint.
For Nelson, providing backpacks and filling them with school supplies is nearly an obsession. She starts after the back-to-school sales end, asking stores to sell her their leftover backpacks on the cheap -- an offer retailers often accept because they don't want to fill storage space with excess stock, and because Nelson guarantees they'll go to low-income families.
Of the backpacks distributed in August, Costco donated 100, and other retailers offered terrific prices. "I got 118 from JC Penney alone for $1.97 each, and WalMart was amazing," Nelson said.
During the summer, Spokane Valley Partners put out the word in the community that that it needed supplies to fill all those backpacks, and the response was overwhelming. One church, Mirabeau Chapel, provided enough supplies to fill 100 backpacks.
In mid-August, when the goods were distributed, the center had everything that was on the supplies lists for every grade in the three Spokane Valley school districts: spiral notebooks, scientific calculators, highlighters, pens, pencils, paste, Kleenex tissues, compasses, mechanical pencils -- the list goes on.
The need has never been greater: Not only is unemployment at its highest in 25 years, but declining budgets forced schools to cut back, meaning the list of supplies students are expected to bring into the classroom has grown. So, even though Americans said they intended to cut back significantly on back-to-school shopping, the necessary spending for school supplies remained high, at $82 per child, according to a scientific survey commissioned by the National Retail Federation.
Volunteers at Spokane Valley Partners said the families that showed up for this year's distributions included some who wouldn't have sought help in the past.
"More people lost their jobs or had their hours cut back and it's hard for them to buy school supplies," said Nancy Pohle, who's been volunteering with the school supply program since she retired in 2001 from teaching English in the East Valley School District.
"Imagine going to school and you don't have anything," Pohle said. "It's really embarrassing. They may not even want to go."
Spokane Valley Partners required parents to take one "life skills" class before their children collect backpacks and school supplies. They could choose between classes offered in English or Russian, and in subjects that included parenting, smoking cessation, healthy eating and exercise, family budgeting, and wise use of credit.
In addition to the school supplies, Spokane Valley Partners offered personal care kits for each child, packed with toothpaste, tooth paste, shampoo, deodorant, soap and other necessities. Children -- some of them from families who share personal items as a way to save money -- often are thrilled to receive their own, said volunteer Mary St. John.
"It's a wonderful, wonderful program," she said. "It does a lot of good."
