Bunker Hill Associates Stage Backpack Giveaway Sept. 17 at Three Locations

The Bunker Hill Associates are staging a Back to School backpack and school supply distribution for the community – ages 5-13 – at three locations on Thursday afternoon, Sept. 17.

There will be special guests like numerous local police officers and Police Commissioner Willie Gross and his command staff to help welcome youngsters back into remote school mode. The backpacks will be filled with school supplies, and will be while supplies last. There will also be free ice cream from the Frozen Hoagies truck at all three locations.

Vice President Jimmy Lister Jr. said the Associates have taken a major pivot during the pandemic to assist with feeding the elderly and the community. Their typical mission is to serve the youth, and so they decided this would be a good way to return to that mission.

“The primary mission has always been to help children in the neighborhood, but this spring and summer we transitioned to helping senior citizens,” he said. “We had a good year of fundraising and wanted to do something for the children in the neighborhood now. The best way to do that, we felt, was to help parents with school supplies. We know a lot of parents are out of work due to the pandemic. We thought a backpack, school supplies and the basics could alleviate pressure on parents.”

President Maureen Collier said they are stressing that people wear masks and stay socially distant at the locations. That will be important, but she said it will also be important to have a little fun too.

“These kids this year could not go to day camp this summer and many of the kids in the city could not go to the public pool because of the sign ups,” she said. “I’m sure it’s affecting their mental health. The Associates mission is to help the children of the Town. At the same time, we wanted to include the police officers as there has been a lot of negativity in the media about the police and we thought this would be a good example of community policing. I think it will be a win-win for the children and the police officers.”

Past President Kim Mahoney said there were other sponsors like the City of Boston Credit Union.

“The well is deep for the Associates with our membership and we’re able to bring that in to help the community,” she said.

The three locations include:

•Bunker Hill Park (Doherty Park), 4 p.m.

•Bunker Hill Housing Development/O’Reilly Court – Monument Street, 5 p.m.

•Eden Street Park, 6 p.m.

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