School Savvy Back for 2021

Posted on November 2nd, 2020

COVID-19 has led to the cancellation of many events in the last few months, but one thing it will NOT be cancelling is the School Savvy CQ back to school program for 2021.

The back to school resources initiative has been helping Queensland students to access low-cost uniforms and quality stationery items for the past four years.

With the pandemic forcing widespread job losses and economic unease, School Savvy will be needed in 2021 more than ever.

School Savvy CQ Project Manager Anna Morris said that while preparations for the annual event had been delayed due to the pandemic, the team at CentacareCQ were determined to make sure it still went ahead one way or another.

“Normally we would have started to plan our next School Savvy event in May or June, but with COVID at its peak during that time, everything was up in the air,” Anna said.

“We were determined that even if we had to completely change the way School Savvy was run, we would still make sure that we were available in some way to help people when they needed us most.

“It was really just a case of us having to wait and see how the situation developed before we could really start to make some concrete plans.”

While regional Queensland has experienced an economic slowdown rather than shutdown from COVID-19, a report published by Professor John Rolfe from the Rural Economics Centre of Excellence said that the economic disruption of the pandemic has some concerning trends for regional areas.

The report said that across Central Queensland and Wide Bay alone, up to 12% of the workforce was expected to experience a reduction in employment, while up to 8% of standard incomes were expected to be reduced.

“With the amount of job losses, or loss of income that people have endured throughout the year, we knew that we had to make sure School Savvy was ready to help get kids from families who were struggling financially, back to school with the right resources,” Anna said.

“We talked about lots of different options for what we could do if heavy event restrictions were still in place, but ultimately our first preference was always to hold our School Savvy events as closely to the original format as possible.

“While our pop-up shops will look a little bit different this January, with COVID-safe practices in place, we are quietly optimistic that Queensland will continue to manage the COVID situation in a way that allows School Savvy to go-ahead as attendees have come to expect.”

School Savvy CQ will be holding pop-up shops in January 2021 in the follow locations:

  • Rockhampton
  • Bundaberg
  • Capricorn Coast
  • Gracemere
  • Mount Morgan

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