Local Help

• “Backpacks for Hope” is an effort to collect backpacks filled with school supplies to aid some of the 250,000 kids displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The effort is a partnership between Washington State University, local businesses and WSU graduate assistant Gail Gleason and her son, Steve Gleason, an NFL player for the New Orleans Saints.

They ask that donors buy a school backpack and fill it with supplies typically used in a specific grade, such as notebooks, pens, pencils, crayons, rulers, markers, scissors and glue, plus a children’s book, stuffed animal and a journal for the child to record his or her story. The grade for which the backpack is intended should be marked on the outside of the backpack on a piece of tape.

Backpacks may be delivered by Oct. 7 to Postnet Postal and Business Services, 3327 W. Indian Trail Road, or Weldon Barber, 1325 W. First Ave. in Spokane or 247 W. Sunset Ave. in Coeur d’Alene. Backpacks also will be collected at the WSU-Stanford football game Oct. 8. All those collected will be delivered to children by Saints players and staff.

For more information see www.wsu.edu//katrina.

• Students at three Spokane schools and a Spokane Valley business are collecting new items to send to hurricane victims via Feed the Children. Students at Lewis and Clark High School, Bowdish Middle School and Chester Elementary will be collecting items such as toothbrushes and toothpaste, flashlights, baby wipes and blankets, said Sandra Lambdin, who is coordinating the drive and whose husband will deliver the items to the Gulf region. Any personal item that could be used in a shelter is appropriate, although only new items will be accepted. Items also can be dropped off at The Trellis Marketplace, at 4102 S. Bowdish Road, through Oct. 15. For more information or for suggested items call Lambdin at 710-0671.