A Scarsdale native founded the Fill A Backpack Drive to benefit underprivileged kids on the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation. Now in its third year, the backpack drive is accepting donations from Westchester residents through March 3.
During a service trip to the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 2008, Scarsdale High School student Maggie Dunne realized that some of the reservation’s schools start running short on supplies mid-year and their students often need a lift at the end of the brutal winter months. Shortly after the trip, Dunne founded the Lakota Pine Ridge Children’s Enrichment Project and launched a Fill A Backpack Drive to provide the children on the reservation with school supplies, books, sneakers, and sports equipment.
Now, Dunne is a junior at Colgate University and the Third Annual Fill A Backpack Drive is underway. The drive encourages families, sports teams, and other groups to fill backpacks with supplies that can help improve the lives of Oglala Lakota children — who celebrate a rich culture but do not have access to items that most of us take for granted. Visit lakotakids.blogspot.com for giving guidelines, shipping instructions, and local drop-off locations. The drive ends March 3, and donations will be distributed to reservation schools by a team from Colgate University the week of March 10.
If you miss the deadline, though, you can still lend a hand — late donations can be sent to the reservation throughout the month of March, and you can always make a tax-deductible monetary donation to the cause at lakotakids.blogspot.com.
