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A Few Clouds North Shore Key Club hands out backpacks stuffed with love
The North Shore Key Club helped several students from financially-struggling families start the school year off right by providing fully-stocked backpacks. The Key Club, with the help of the North Shore Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, spent an entire morning filling backpacks with back to school necessities like pencils, notebooks and everything else a student will need to succeed throughout the school year.
The North Shore Key Club is one of thousands throughout the country. It is a student-led service group which is a subsidiary of the Kiwanis Club, another national service organization, which puts an emphasis on teaching students to be leaders and volunteers in their communities.
Connie Pinilla, a North Shore Kiwanis Club board member and the president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, explained that the chamber had been doing a backpack event for the last three years, where they provided backpacks to in-need families. She said that when the Key Club members heard about it, they immediately got involved and found a way to help.
“The Key Club kids have always been extremely cooperative,” Pinilla said. “They said that it gives them a great sense of contributing, seeing that they’re helping out their fellow students, and it’s just a great feeling to be able to contribute to this whole process.”
The Key Club members gathered at Pinilla’s home the morning of the backpack drop off, stuffing the backpacks with glue, writing utensils, scissors and other essential school supplies. They then helped take the backpacks to North Shore High School, where they helped register people and hand out backpacks.
Julia Salat, the Key Club advisor, explained that events like this are the essence of what being a part of Key Club is all about. She added that on the day of the backpack giveaway it had been raining all day, until the moment people began showing up, and the sun serendipitously came out, reflecting the mood of the attendees.
“My kids did a great job, and they really stuffed those backpacks,” Salat said. “So it was a very uncommon, very heartfelt, interesting kind of a display.”
The Key Club donated roughly $300 to help pay for the school supplies that went into the backpacks, while the backpacks themselves were paid for by the chamber. The backpacks were picked up by students of all ages and their families, ranging from children as young as 5 to high schoolers.
Pinilla said there were around 10 backpacks left over after the event, which she donated to the Gribbin Elementary School in Glen Cove. There were also roughly 200 boxes of crayons donated by Cal Krinsky, a Sea Cliff Elementary School student whose charity, Art With Heart, helps provide art supplies to in-need families, which will be going to the North Shore Daycare Center.
