NEWS RELEASE
OSCAR OLIVER
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Twelve months ago, 13-year-old Oscar Oliver from Barrie, started his Buy a Backpack campaign for Ukrainian war refugee children who fled to Poland.
His original goal was to supply 200 backpacks to the children — each one filled with school and educational items, toys, games, personal supplies, candy and Lego.
Thanks to the support he received, Oscar achieved a total number of 1,862 filled backpacks by the end of 2022 — which he delivered to the children, and to children’s organizations, on his three trips to Poland during the year.
Now, determined to do even more to help children in need, Oscar is embarking on a new humanitarian mission.
Oscar is now fundraising for, and going to deliver, new backpacks, filled with personal hygiene supplies, essential clothing, educational items, toys, games and candy to Ukrainian war-affected children living in orphanages in Ukraine and Poland and to Turkish children who are displaced victims of the terrible earthquake in Turkey.
Oscar will be going to Warsaw, Poland, later in March to pack as many backpacks as he can fund-raise for, and to load three trucks, which are being arranged for his cause.
The first truck will deliver his backpacks directly to the kids in orphanages in Ukraine, including the Children's Town Residential Care Orphanage in Pokrovsk, which is in the Donetsk region where the fighting is really bad.
The second truck, from Ecolines in Lodz, Poland, will deliver his backpacks to three charity organizations in Turkey, including the Turkish Religious Foundation in Ankara, who will then deliver his backpacks to the children who need them most, in the areas where the earthquake has killed so many and left tens of thousands homeless and fighting for survival.
Oscar will be going in the third truck, with his backpacks, to the children’s orphanage in Bielsko-Biała, which is home to all the orphans from Vinnytsia Oblast, from the centre of Ukraine.
“I have decided that wherever in the world there is a catastrophe that affects children, I want my Buy a Backpack campaign to be there to help,” said Oscar. “This will be my future.”
Oscar’s goal for this mission is to raise another 1,133 filled backpacks. This would bring his Buy a Backpack campaign total to 3,000 backpacks since he began.
Oscar wants to get his first shipment of filled backpacks to the children in Ukraine and Turkey in time for Easter. Whatever the number of backpacks raised, Oscar will split them equally between the countries.
A $50 donation to Oscar’s Buy a Backpack campaign at www.oscaroliver.org buys one new backpack, filled with all the supplies, which the children’s foundation in Poland, Fundacja Dziecięca Fantazja, purchases on his behalf. The foundation also helps arrange and co-ordinate the transportation and destinations of the backpacks for Oscar.
“These innocent children in both countries have really suffered,” said Oscar. “Many of the Ukrainian children caught up in this terrible war have been abandoned in orphanages. They come from troubled homes, or are social orphans with a disability, or saw their parents killed during the fighting. There are now over 105,000 orphans in Ukraine. The Turkish children, who are victims of this massive earthquake, have lost everything.”
“All the children are scared and frightened. I want to try and bring a smile to their faces and to show that someone from far away cares. I know from my previous campaigns that even an item as small as a backpack with small personal gifts can mean so much to others in need and I’m on a Kids for Kids mission to try and help as many as I can,” he said.
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