U19 - AIR-U19A-1

Stephen's Backpacks

@ 122A 17th Ave SE (close to Stampede Grounds)

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Hello & Welcome to our Stephen's Backpacks Team! 

 

Whether it is your first year, fifth, or fifteenth we are incredibly excited to welcome you to be part of our Christmas Backpacks Program for 2025! This year's program is extra special to our organization as it will mark the 100,000 backpack packed since our founding in 2006! 

 

This email contains all specific and relevant details to your unique volunteer experience. If you have any remaining questions, please reach out!

 

Volunteer Date: Friday December 12

Time: 6:30-8:00pm

Location & Parking: 122A 17th Ave SE (close to Stampede Grounds)

Parking is available in the lots on either side of the building. Although there is signage for 24/7 reserve, our neighbours have no issues with us using these parking spaces on your volunteer date! See attached map with parking boxed in yellow. 

Volunteer Duties: Backpack Packing for Ages 7-10: We will be packing backpacks for kids aged 7-10 years old with warm winter essentials. Volunteers could also anticipate helping assemble candy bags, diaper bags, making Christmas cards to go inside backpacks, and older volunteers will support in sorting donated stuffies (Thanks to the Calgary Hitmen Teddy Bear Toss) into age groups. 

 

Reminder: Minor Volunteer Supervision 

We are very proud to welcome volunteers of all ages and believe that the gift of giving of your time truly has no age! Thank you for your support in making this successful for all our volunteers by bringing your own supervision for minors as below: 

• Under age 5: 1 adult: 1 child
• Age 6-10: 1 adult: 3 children
• Age 11-15: 1 adult: 6 youth 
• Ages 16+: Can volunteer independently. Would encourage 1 adult chaperone with a group of teen volunteers when possible!

Good to Know: 

• Embrace the holiday spirit!: Christmas sweaters, Santa hats, & bells galore. We would love to see your holiday best! 
• Washrooms: Are on site! This is a small single sink/toilet situation and we have limited space for things like diaper changing. 
• Footwear:We are incredibly grateful to have a year round facility at no cost to us. It is a basement suite and therefore has concrete flooring. Good sneakers or comfortable footwear is highly encouraged!
• Accessibility: Due to being a basement suite, we have a large set of stairs to get down to our "operation". At this time, we do not have mobility support (ex. platform lift or elevator). Our apologies if this is a barrier for you to be able to volunteer with us! 
• Changes to Availability:If any details pertaining to you/your group's availability please let us know. For nearly all volunteer opportunities we do end up with Waitlists and would love to welcome in someone else if you are no longer able! 
• GROUP SIZE: To allow as many volunteers to experience our program as possible we have to be very specific on the number of volunteers. This is also for our Fire Code. If you have registered multiple volunteers (families, teams, etc) please stick to the number of volunteers you have registered. If that number becomes less, also let us know so we could welcome other volunteers from our waitlist. Your specific shift is FILLED (We are so grateful!) but this does mean we cannot accomodate any larger size. 

We look forward to seeing you in person very soon! Thank you for choosing to give back to your community and choosing us at Stephen's Backpacks to volunteer your time! 

 

Yours in Volunteering,