LOWELL — Five-year-old Jay Ortiz rummaged through his shiny new Batman backpack, pulling out a plethora of school supplies — bright notebooks, unsharpened pencils, even a supply box to hold everything.

“I’m going to put this in my office,” he declared, standing in the backyard of his home daycare. “I have very important papers.”

The rising kindergartener is among thousands of children receiving school backpacks this year through the annual “Backpack Attack” drive from The Wish Project.

The drive distributes backpacks filled with school supplies to needy children, taking the back-to-school burden off of homeless or low-income families so they can focus on other needs.

“We may not be able to end poverty, but we can really take the sting out of it,” said Wish Project founder Donna Hunnewell.

This year, the nonprofit is asking for the public’s help to reach 2,500 backpacks distributed through 49 different agencies — Community Teamwork Inc., House of Hope, and Clarendon Early Education Services, which places children in daycare centers like the one Ortiz attends.

Hunnewell began the drive 15 years ago, selling items from her home to raise money for school supplies. She organized roughly 300 backpacks out of her one-car garage in Belvidere.

Now operating out of The Wish Project’s warehouse in Foundry Industrial Park, the drive has the support of donors to distribute much more.Article to Print