Donation Drives

Periodically throughout the year, we initiate donation drives to help us meet our goals for supporting children in crisis with a backpack filled with essential and comfort items like pajamas, toothbrushes, soft blankets, stuffed animals, and coloring books. Donation drives in the community is the primary way we are able to bring in the items we need to pack our backpacks for children and youth in need across Alberta. We are a small organization that relies on the help of individual heroes within the community to help us reach our goals.

CURRENT DRIVES HAPPENING:
300 BACKPACKS FOR 300 KIDS | JUNE 15-30TH, 2022

It has been a busy month of May for us at I Belong Bags as we’ve delivered backpacks to 4 new organizations and are short on supplies. In the current world climate, we anticipate more requests to come soon from refugee families. Over the last year, we have received over 300 brand new backpacks but need your help to fill them! Please review our list of backpack items and donation drop-off zones and consider inspiring your family, friends, and coworkers to launch a donation drive for I Belong Bags. A family collaborating to fill one backpack means a backpack for a child in need who has left home with nothing! Gather a group of friends or employees for a packing party or pajama shopping day?

WHAT IS IN A BACKPACK?

Our backpacks are filled with essential and comfort items that would help a child through the first 24-48 hours of being displaced from their home. We have 3 age groups we collect for: Newborn – Age 2 | Age 3-9 | Age 10-18.

Items like pajamas, toothbrushes, toothpaste, basic toiletries, diapers, and wipes for little ones, a soft fleece blanket small enough to fit into a backpack, a stuffed animal, coloring books, crayons, reading book. Journals, sketchbooks, pencils, pens, and markers for teens. Please refer to our backpack list for complete details.

WHY WE ASK FOR NEW ITEMS WITH RECEIPTS:

Many of these kiddos will have left home very suddenly with nothing but the clothes on their backs or a garbage bag filled hastily with a few belongings. They may have never owned anything new before or even owned a hair or toothbrush let alone a new pair of pajamas. In a traumatic event, receiving a backpack filled with a brand-new pair of pajamas, a comforting stuffed animal, and fuzzy blanket with a toy and coloring book can make the difference between “I don’t feel safe and I don’t belong” to “people in my community care about me and I am safe”. It can provide hope and dignity and a fresh start.
We ask for receipts for our value tracking system and to follow government reporting standards for NP organizations. A receipt is nice to have for us, but certainly not a necessity in order to donate.

WHERE CAN YOU DROP OFF DONATIONS?

Our sponsor Sentinel Storage has set up donation boxes in their front office at three of their locations. Please visit them during their operational hours:

If you are unable to physically get to one of these drop off zones or have a large donation, please email us at info@ibelongbags.com and we will arrange for a volunteer to do a pickup.

WHAT ITEMS SHOULD I DONATE?

We hold donation drives periodically that focus on certain items we may be low on so refer to this page for current donation drives. Generally, we keep an updated list of the items on this page. You, your family, or your organization may want to collect all of the items that go into a backpack for a certain age range and build a full backpack to drop off or just collect for specific items like pajamas, toys, or blankets. Many people will watch for sales and pick up an extra item while shopping for their own children and drop them in our donation bins. We ask that toys and blankets be kept small enough to pack into backpacks and if possible, place liquids into Ziploc bags prior to adding to a backpack.

Monetary Donations: We are working on setting up a donation link on our website but until then, financial donations can be made by email money transfer using our email info@ibelongbagscom