The Friendship House Backpack Brigade has been hard at work in 2005. The activity is a community service project by clients of this agency to provide necessary items for children who are temporarily dislocated. Items such as toothpaste, hair brushes, and soap are packaged into backpacks.

Such items are frequently overlooked in the transition. Always included, of course, is a stuffed animal in every package.

In 2005, backpacks were distributed to a number of organizations, including to children in our community who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Organizations receiving backpacks were:

Youth Service Bureau

Illinois Department of Children and

Family Services

ADV / SAS

Catholic Social Services

PADS Shelter

Lincoln School

Jefferson School

McKinley School

Central School

Illinois Valley Free Church

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