An 11-year-old Winnipeg girl who wanted to help the city's homeless found a great way to do it, spending six months filling185 backpacks with necessities and then handing them out to inner city residents this week.
Callie Costello was inspired to do something to help the homeless after coming face-to-face with the city鈥檚 homeless population while volunteering in a soup kitchen with her mother.
she told CTV Winnipeg.
So earlier this year, Callie's mom helped her create a Facebook page to gather donations of money and supplies. It wasn't long before the project, dubbed Callie's Backpacks for Winnipeg's Homeless, took off.
"It made me feel pretty good that people were actually believing in me. That people were like telling me, 'Oh yeah, you can do this'," she said.
Over six months, with donated goods, such as toothpaste, bottled water, and granola bars. Each bag also included a special note she and her friends had written to remind the recipients that they matter, and are in her prayers.
On delivery day, a line quickly formed outside the Main Street Project, in one of Winnipeg's toughest neighbourhoods.
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"I think they are great, and I think it will help me an awful lot," he said.
Another man named Alan said the timing of the gift was perfect.
"Lately, I've been going through a hard time... and I think there should be more of this," he said, holding back tears.
Callie says this is just the first step in her Backpack Project. She's already collected more bags on her Facebook page, and this time she and her mom hope want to distribute 500 of them at a youth shelter.
"She actually wants to keep doing this," says Callie's mom, Crystal Costello. "We can keep doing it, so why not just keep doing it? We should do it. And that's the end of it; when Callie makes up her mind about something, she's pretty stubborn."
With a report from CTV Winnipeg's Meghan Roberts
