UConn Senior, Ava Abruzzese, organized a successful donation drive on Saturday, April 11th, at the Catholic Center at the University of Connecticut in Storrs in support of “Backpacks for Life”. She welcomed volunteers from UConn as well as Little Sisters of the Poor from Enfield to help sort and put together the backpacks.
BFL distributes military-grade backpacks filled with daily essential items to help homeless and at-risk veterans. A backpack is like a home to many veterans, and these backpacks are a symbol of hope and reassurance that they are not alone on their path toward self-sufficiency.
Nearly 1,000 daily essential items were collected on Saturday and sorted and finally put into gallon size storage bags to fill 44 backpacks. These backpacks will then be distributed to Veteran Service Organizations in the CT region that directly support the under-served veteran community. Monetary donations were also generously made to offset the cost of the backpacks.
