Donations from southern Ontario heading to Attawapiskat

Residents in the remote northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat will soon be getting a shipment of school supplies, warm winter clothing and hand-crafted baby items.

The items were all donated through collection drives held by several non-profit agencies in southern Ontario.

The project was spearheaded by the Canadian, non-profit,humanitarian group, True North Aid.

The group sends help and suppliesinto isolated, fly-in northern communities in Canada.

Director George Woodward says about two skids worth of donations totallingmore than 450 kilograms will be flown into Attawapiskat early next week.

He says he understands this shipment won't solve the long-term problems in the community.

"In the middle of all of that there's a whole group of people that are really in need and really desperate,"Woodward said.

"So we want to try to help them on their day-to-day living and see if there is any way we can help elevate their living conditions and living standardsand ...help them along the way."

Woodward says this isn't the first time True North Aid has sent donations to Attawapiskat. But hesays he feels southern Ontario residents were generous this time around because of the hardships reported in the news lately.

A small drive with big results

Safetynet Clothing Donation program in Oakville, Ont.collected school supplies for students in Attawapiskat. Founder and executive directorBill Shields says their collection drive was just five days.

"When we did it, we filled up a car and then some with school supplies," he said.

"We had so many backpacks donated,and these backpacks were filled with schools supplies as well. We put it together quite quickly and didn't get a chance to do a whole tally, but the community was quite generous with the amount of stuff that what was donated," says Sheilds.

Woodwardsays, as Canadians, we need to recognize that there are some very desperate situations in our country.

"Sometimes we often think about how can we help the people in Africa ... that's all well and good," he said.

"I think we should try and continue to do that. But we also have what I designate sometimes as third world conditions right here in our nation. We need to have our eyes wide open and our arms open to try to help those that are within our country as well."