With school just around the corner, many parents are frantically trying to get everything their child needs for the first day back. “Yep, getting some supplies. We need to get him a whole bunch of new clothes and new shoes,” says Eva Landreth who was out shopping with her son Wednesday. Like many things these days, the cost of back-to-school is up and parents have noticed. In a new report, the retail council of Canada says there are approximately six million students in Canada from Kindergarten to Grade 12 in Canada. The average household will spent up to $750 per child on back-to-school supplies when electronics are included. “We are packing backpacks - everything in these bags that you can think of, from binders to pencils,” says Ashley Plewes with the Collingwood backpack drive. This is her fourth year of running the program. Her small team has been working around the clock packing the bags up in time for the first bell with demand at an all time high. “Kids need to be successful and kids going into school, you know, you want their heads held high, you don’t want them going in with old supplies and being compared to other kids. You get to pull out all the nice, new shinny stuff. Many don’t have anything, and with the costs these days, everything is rising,” says Plewes. Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the agriculture foods lab at Dalhousie University, says parents will get some relief on the costs of lunches heading into the new school year, but it will be short lived. “We actually realized to start the year parents are getting a bit of a break. In August, overall prices have actually dropped from July and we are expecting the same trend in September, however, we are expecting a bit of an upswing in October,” says Charlebois The Collingwood backpack dive will hand out 200 backpacks before the first day of school. While the application process is complete, people can still get on a waiting list in case there are any no-shows. Just reach out to the Collingwood backpack Facebook page for more information.
