Operation Backpack prepares kids for school

Five-year-old Toni Waller was beaming, knowing she will begin the first grade with new notebooks, folders, pencils and markers, but more importantly a sparkly pink backpack of her favorite cartoon character: Dora the Explorer.

"It's heavy," said Toni, who dug into her new school bag to show off a three-ring notebook, filler paper, index cards and a purple pencil case filled with colored markers.

Toni's healthy appetite for school started when she received her first backpack last year for kindergarten -- a necessity for the first day of school that her family, homeless and living in a Bronx shelter, could not afford.

Through "Operation Backpack" -- a back-to-school donation drive -- Toni was able to begin kindergarten "like the rest of the kids," said her mother, Venus Raymond, 38.

Last fall, "Operation Backpack," organized by the Volunteers of America Greater New York, distributed 7,000 backpacks stuffed with school supplies to homeless children.

This summer they expect to give away 9,000 backpacks and school supplies to 65 shelters and community groups across the city for homeless school children from kindergarten through high school.

"We've already gotten a request for 9,000 children, and with threats to cuts in the Advantage" housing subsidy program, more families are expected to become homeless, said Rachel Weinstein, Volunteers of America vice president and chief development and communications officer.

According to the city Department of Homeless Services, in the first six months of this year, 15,001 children were living in shelters. The department does not break down how many of those children attend school.

Before Operation Backpack, children living in shelters were fortunate if they went to school with "a plastic bag with pencils," Weinstein said.

Since then, the program has expanded, collecting thousands of notebooks, folders, rulers, dictionaries, thesauruses, calculators and geometry kits, all targeted to a student's grade level, she said.

Other supplies needed are glue sticks, safety scissors, watercolor paint, coloring paper, assignment books and weekly planners for older school children, she said.

Through Sunday, all Duane Reade stores across the city and on Long Island, including Massapequa, Hicksville and New Hyde Park, will be accepting new backpacks and school-supply donations.

Federal Express will then pick up the donations and deliver them to a sorting center in Manhattan, where more than 300 volunteers will go through the supplies and pack them into backpacks, Weinstein said.

Getting excited about school supplies has made Toni enthusiastic about reading and writing, her mother said.

"When she gets her backpack, she says she's ready for school," said Raymond, a single mother. "I didn't finish school, and I love that she gets so excited. I didn't have that when I was growing up."