Families at Salvation Army backpack giveaway hopeful for new school year

The 2,500-odd backpacks handed out Wednesday by the Salvation Army were stuffed with pencils, papers and other necessities.

And thanks to Nom Nom convenience stores and other groups, more goodies found their way inside: flyers from SNAP, the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, the Northwest Fair Housing Alliance and even loaves of bread.

Yet somehow the backpacks felt lighter than usual, less of a burden after a year spent at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The virus hasn’t gone away – free vaccines were offered, and the event was held outdoors because of a new surge – but most at the giveaway felt they finally reached the end of a dark tunnel.

Few will enjoy the old normal more than Jenny Hoyt, who will gain some “me time” this fall.

Last year, Hoyt’s home doubled as a remote classroom for grandchildren Jasmine, Jarek and Scarlett while their mother was at work.

“Three classrooms, actually, every day,” Hoyt said she reached the final stretch of booths outside Spokane’s Salvation Army headquarters. “I was the teacher, and I didn’t get paid for it.”

Then again, she was rewarded beyond words.

A cancer survivor, Hoyt bared her arms; they were tattooed with the names of her grandchildren.

“They’re my reason for living,” Hoyt said. “It was hard, but we prevailed.”

“But I look forward to enjoying some time to myself,” Hoyt said.

A few steps away, Ashley McKee and her children looked forward to a year of getting back to normal.

“With everything that happened last year, it was just mind-blowing to know how fast everything went,” said McKee, thinking back to the sudden closure of buildings in March 2020. “I just never expected it would last so long.”

Neither did her children. Daughter Savannah spent most of her sixth-grade year at Westview Elementary at home, struggling with assignments.

“I’m more of a visual learner, so it was hard,” Savannah said.

McKee’s son Sean is going into his freshman year at Rogers High after a frustrating year of falling grades. He hopes that in-person learning will put him on track.

McKee hoped to do the same as she pushed her youngest son in a stroller.

“He has speech delays, so I’m hoping to get him into Head Start,” McKee said. “I tried to do as much as I could last year, but with everything else going on, it wasn’t enough.”

Nearby, Juanita Jones was hoping for a better future for herself and her children, Francesca and Franklin.

Jones had lost her job because of the pandemic, then lost her babysitter.

“It was a real punch in the stomach,” Jones said.

Larissa Wilson and her two children suffered even more dislocation, moving three times last school year.

The year began in Spokane, continued in Nebraska and ended in Montana. Wilson declined to share the circumstances, except to say that having her kids back in person “is going to be awesome.”