Hundreds take part in free backpack giveaway

The Cameron Verizon Wireless Store on Walnut Street handed out hundreds of backpacks filled with school supplies as part of its nationwide giveaway Sunday.

As part of a national event, TCC stores across the nation will donate more than 140,000 backpacks to children in need.

“It’s validating to be able to give back to our community and at least let parents know their kid will have a nice backpack for the school year,” said Melissa Fry, tech advisor for TCC.

With the TCC store following state and Centers for Disease Control guidelines for preventing the spread of COVID-19, this year’s giveaway may be a bit different. Another component this year is the need for backpacks with the store receiving fewer backpacks this year due to demand. 

“We get around 250 backpacks and we usually give away about 200 of them,” Fry said. “This year we’re getting a lower amount so I’m hoping we can keep serving about what we’ve been doing. [COVID-19] really doesn’t change the experience for me. We typically see a lot of parents that probably are having financial troubles.”

Fry said another component is the community support behind the event. Whether its Dream Catchers providing ponies or first responders letting kids explore their vehicles, the city of Cameron and its organizations provide lively entertainment.

“It’s always a lot of fun. We typically get to do an event where we bring in someone from the community,” Fry said. “We’ve brought in ponies from Dream Catchers, the police and fire department would bring out a vehicle for the kids to check out and we’ve had chalk for them to play with. It’s always been fun in the past years.”

This year will mark the 1 millionth backpack given away since the start of the now annual event.

“I’ve never been part of an organization, until I started here, that actually gave back to the community or anybody. It gives us a strong identity in the community to be able to say we are a part of it,” Fry said.

By 2 p.m. only 11 backpacks remained. One person happy to grab one of the last remaining bags was Brodie Roe. 

“My friend sent me a message saying they still have some and [Brodie] wanted one,” said Jessica Roe, Brodie’s mother. “I think it’s a really cool thing to do for the kids. It’s great. Anything we can do to support our kids and get them excited for school is great. There have been some ups and downs and this gives them something to look forward to again.”