An incredible story of pivoting during covid to help others

By: Nadine |

When COVID hit in early 2020, we saw all types of industries slowing down, closing down, or pivoting. Those who found a new way to offer their services to the community survived and thrived. We saw businesses such as Sons of Vancouver Distillery shift from supplying delicious snacks and spirits to making and providing the community with hand sanitizer. There are so many inspiring and uplifting stories to choose from. Here is one that is near and dear to the team at Regional Recycling.

Backpack Buddies Program

Backpack Buddies is a local charity that helps feed hungry children outside traditional school lunch and breakfast programs. Instead, they provide bags of food for school children to take home and use for their meals in the evenings and weekends. They have partnered with BC schools to take a collaborative approach to feeding hungry children.

Each bag contains fresh fruit, vegetables, and non-perishables, which come out to more than nine meals to help each child eat well all weekend. Here’s how Backpack Buddies describes their services, “A child who receives a bag of food from Backpack Buddies may not get anything else to eat all weekend, so our priority is to ensure the bags of food help our kids get through the weekend without going hungry.”

These bags are traditionally handed out in schools to students by a counsellor or teacher, privately and discreetly to respect the anonymity of each child. However, with COVID and the sudden halt to in-school learning, Backpack Buddies had to make a significant change so that these children didn’t go without.

The team immediately rolled up their sleeves and found a way to pivot. Between their incredible volunteers and support from the community, they quickly and efficiently found a way to keep getting food to these kids. This non-profit quickly added delivery teams, mapped out routes, and made sure that the kids they were helping didn’t go without.

But it went far beyond that. With the generosity of donors, community partners, and volunteers, Backpack Buddies set new records for bags of food delivered. Their program reached new communities, and Backpack Buddies fed more children and families in 2020 than ever before.

As one of those community partners, Regional Recycling is so proud to hear of these results. We are happy to report that we saw a massive jump in donations from 2019 to 2020. In 2020 we saw 16 X more donations than in 2019…and it looks like 2021 will be an even bigger year of giving again!

Find Backpacking Buddies?

It’s a pleasure to see members of our community choosing to donate their returns to this incredible charity. If you’d like to be a part of this inspiring movement of giving, you can also donate your return via our FastDrop or DepoZip services. Just make a free account, and you can choose to donate your return to Backpack Buddies and help feed children across BC! We are so thankful to our community for your generous support.