About 300 school-aged children in Thorncliffe Park will be given free backpacks today as part of the neighbourhood’s annual back-to-school event.

The event, organized by the Thorncliffe Park Tenants Association and the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, serves as both a community celebration to conclude the summer and an opportunity to ensure that children in the immigrant-heavy neighbourhood have everything they need to go back to school.

This year, volunteers will be handing out over 1,000 items to local children, including backpacks, lunch bags, calculators and key chains.

“I love to do this because our community and the kids, they are from far, and what they need, I want to help them out,” President of the Thorncliffe Park Tenants Association Abbas Kolia told CP24 on Saturday afternoon. “I am very excited to have done this for the last six years.”

A number of dignitaries are attending the event, including Premier Kathleen Wynne, city councillor John Burnside and Member of Parliament Rob Oliphant.

Oliphant told CP24 is really about celebrating a community that is “rich in every way except often money” and making sure area children can go back to school on an “equal footing.”

“Abbas collects all sorts of back to school supplies to make sure that every family is able to send their kid of to school with what they need to learn, to grow and to go back on an equal footing with all the kids in the city,” he said. “Not all of them have the means to get their own backpack but they will all be going to school with a backpack this year.

The event is taking place between noon and 8 p.m.at the East York Town Centre on Overlea Boulevard.