Thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies donated to students

With school just two weeks away, Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall and the County of Simcoe teamed up for the annual Providing Instruments for Excellence (PIE) Education program, providing thousands of school bags and supplies to children.

The program has delivered 6,500 bags so far this year out of 7,500. Each bag contains supplies like pens, pencils, highlighters, rulers and notebooks.

On Thursday, Nuttall and representatives from the County delivered to 50 children in Simcoe County social housing in the east end of Barrie.

"These are the small little things that we can do to make it a little bit easier for our tenants to be able to access services," said Mina Fayez-Bahgat, general manager of social and community services for the County of Simcoe. "And make sure that their kids are being taken care of."

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Gavin Hickling, 18, hopes to become a mechanic or history major and has benefited from the program.

"This is going to help a lot with my mechanic classes," said Hickling. "I'm going to graduate next year, and it's going to help me get my diploma."

Nuttall co-founded the education program along with the PIE Wood Fired Pizza Joint in Barrie in 2010.

"We started with 800 bags, (and) as of this year, we're at over 27,500," the Barrie mayor said.

The program now supplies more than $100,000 in school supplies per year to children in Barrie, Rexdale, Sudbury, Christian Island, and Ottawa.

For Nuttall, who grew up in government-subsidized housing, it's his way of giving back.

"There's nothing better than to be able to pay forward what was provided to me," added Nuttall. "I really hope it has the same effect on [the children] as all of the amazing things that were done for me had on me."

Organizers still have 1,000 bags to deliver, which they plan to do by Monday.

The program hopes to double this year's output and deliver 15,000 bags next year.