From far left: Karlene Santiago, Angie Vargas, Queen Massaline, Lisa Curran and Gregg Sampson
Five members of OUC’s Community Engagement team stuffed 461 backpacks with essential school supplies Thursday (July 23) at A Gift For Teaching’s annual The Great Big Backpack Build. In our sixth year of sponsoring the event, OUC contributed $2,500 toward the cost of school supplies in addition to providing volunteers with H2OUC bottled water. The weeklong event was expected to produce 12,500 equipped backpacks for underserved Orange and Osceola county public schools students. Normally the Backpack Build would be completed in a day with hundreds of volunteers working in a ballroom, but due to the coronavirus pandemic it was spread over seven days so small groups of volunteers wearing personal protective equipment could observe social distancing.
