By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Staff Writer
The Dennis Labadie memorial backpack giveaway went off without a hitch last Saturday, Aug. 3, at the office of Crestline Real Estate. This giveaway is designed to give any Rim students the opportunity to begin the school year with new school materials and backpacks. This year more than 200 backpacks were purchased by the Labadie family for the students to choose from.
There were many different sizes, styles and colors and various designs, some with licensed superhero designs and princesses, that had been specially selected by the mother-son team of Rosemarie and Dominic Labadie, in honor of Rosemarie’s late husband, Dennis. He believed in education and began these backpack giveaways in 2002 to enable Rim students to start the school year with the proper school supplies. He believed that students have more pride with a new backpack they have chosen themselves.
Inside the office with the selection of backpacks.
The backpacks were stacked on the tables inside the real estate office where three generations of the Labadie family members helped the students find the perfect backpack for each of them.
Once again this year, the Crestline-Lake Gregory Rotary Club and the Crestline Lions Club collaborated on providing the school supplies to the students. Two members of the Lions had joined the Rotarians at their meeting on Aug. 1 to bag up the pencils, pencil boxes and pouches, markers, glue sticks, erasers and safety scissors for the youngest students.
After the students chose their backpacks, they picked up those bagged supplies as well as binders and packages of paper for the older students, notebooks and folders.
This year, Michelle Webb of the 40th Street Starbucks in San Bernardino donated three boxes of school supplies for the students, including spiral notebooks, glue sticks, rulers, crayons and scissors. This donation was coordinated by Ken Witte of the Twin Peaks Masonic Lodge.
The front of the line with Quinlan and Aiden patiently waiting for the 9 a.m. start.
By 8:30 a.m. there was a line of parents and kids hoping to get an excellent selection. At the front of the line were Quinlan, who will be entering kindergarten, and his brother, Aiden, entering the first grade. “I’m very excited,” Aiden said. Both will be attending Valley of Enchantment Elementary School in Crestline.
The only questions asked of those attending was “what grade.” There were students from Charles Hoffman Elementary, VOE Elementary, Lake Arrowhead Elementary, Mary Putnam Henck Intermediate School and some from Rim High School and Mountain of Promise students.
The VOE PTA had sent out e-mails to the parents to inform them of the distribution, so a large majority of the parents and students were from VO this year. There was a similar backpack giveaway occurring in Running Springs the same morning at the farmers market during Mountain Top Days, sponsored by the Running Springs Area Chamber of Commerce for students who live in that area.
The county Head Start program operates a classroom at VOE and was introducing some parents to the existence of the program. “The preschool offers programs for children aged 3 to 5 years of age,” said program coordinator Glenda Harvey. Currently the program is fully enrolled but she was encouraging parents to sign up for the waiting list. She is also seeking instructors for the program. She was passing out water bottles, measuring tapes, little zippered pouches and computer brushes to the kids.
A family showing off their new backpacks.
Parent Kelly Boren, who has lived in Crestline for seven years, brought her two children, a fourth-grader and an eighth-grader to the giveaway. “This is a perfect example of the best part of Crestline – its sense of community,” Boren said. “This sense of ‘small town’ was also exemplified when Goodwin’s Market and its employees were chosen as Citizens of the Year, and they all walked in the 2023 Jamboree Days Parade, and then again when the store reopened and everyone came into the store to just say hello and welcome back the employees. This small-town attitude feels wonderful and inviting.”
“We bought over 200 back packs and have very few left,” said Rosemarie Labadie. “This gives us such a sense of community, knowing we are filling an obvious need. Dennis believed when you give a child the proper materials so they can be successful in school, it gives them more confidence and encourages them to do well. He didn’t have these advantages as a child, but he believed in education. This felt good today.”
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