Canadians are planning to spend more money than last year on sending their children back to school, according to a Bank of Montreal survey published last week.
According to the survey conducted by Pollara, 54 per cent of Canadians will be doing back-to-school shopping this year and expecting to spend an average of $362, up from $319 in 2011. BC residents plan to spend $397 on average, second only to Quebec at $421.
A local stationery store clerk said customers are spending on average about $50 to buy notebooks, pencils, binders and other basic things students need. However, parents are also buying new clothes, shoes and other computer-related accessories which all add up. While spending has continued to increase, not everyone has decided to spend more.
Tamara Kondra is the mother of three school-aged children. “For the past seven years it seems like it has cost me about the same for each of my kids,” she said, although she adds that she encourages her children to reuse supplies from the previous year.
Michelle Jones, Powell River resident and mother of three girls said she always get the girls new backpacks and lunch kits, and of course school supplies, but waits until the third week of September because that’s when all the sales start. “It’s better to buy warmer clothes then because right now stores are still selling their summer clothes.”
Michelle, who is sending all three of her girls to school this fall, has a strategy for her back-to-school shopping, although she admits that she’s procrastinated somewhat trying to get the most out of the end of summer.
“After the first year of buying school supplies, I learned to buy the best quality that I can as it lasts longer and is easier in the end.”
Times have changed and Annie Jones, Michelle’s mother-in-law, remembers a time when going back to school “wasn’t such a fuss.”
Annie, who grew up in Wildwood, started kindergarten at the Catholic church in the late 1950s and went through the whole school system in Powell River. She remembers when times were a little simpler.
“We bought the bare necessities,” she said. “Usually we would get one set of clothes.” She remembers how her grandmother used to go to the second-hand store to buy oversized winter coats that could be taken in to fit.
“I can remember being excited to go back to school,” she said. “And happy when it was over for the summer.”
Debbie Dan, curator at Powell River Historical Museum and Archives, said she remembers going to school in the 1960s was quite different from now. “Nobody used to care what you wore when you were a kid,” she said. “We were all about the same. We used to get a new set of clothes and the boys would get a short haircut.
“When we started school we used those old straight pens that you dipped in the ink bottles and then later the fountain pens,” she said. “It was common that kids showed up with their lunch in an old lard or syrup pail. Although I walked to school, some kids rode their horses and tied them up at the school barn. We used those little scribblers with the sample cursive writing on them. We didn’t have three-ring binders.”
Both Kondra and Michelle mentioned that they were going to Staples to buy their supplies because the store makes getting the basic school supplies easy.
“They’ve got a computer there,” said Michelle. “It has lists of all things that the schools want the kids to have. It’s easy and the clerks at the store help you.”
In addition to helping parents make it easy to gather the basic supplies for their children, the local Staples in Powell River has its Stock the Locker program, a partnership with Powell River Child, Youth and Family Services Society and the Salvation Army to make sure that children from low-income families have a backpack full of supplies for the first day of school, September 4. “We don’t get a list of names,” said Sue Pezzutto, manager at Powell River Staples. “We just get a list that says we need to prepare supplies for a grade three boy who is going to Henderson [Elementary School].”
Funding for Stock the Locker comes from community donations and last weekend Staples raised just under $1,000 dollars with a barbecue and dunk-tank for buying supplies. Staples is also holding a silent auction later this month to raise money.
“All the money raised in Powell River stays in the community,” said Pezzutto.
“It’s not too late for families that are struggling to sign up for supplies,” said Cathy Bartfai, Staples divisional manager. “You just have to sign up at Salvation Army and they’ll tell you when you can go to Staples to pick up the supplies.”
