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Aug 21, 2023

Backpack Lady Project to donate 2,000 backpacks to needy students

The start of a new school year begins this week for Tampa Bay schools. As parents rush to get last-minute school supplies and end-of-summer haircuts, Dunedin resident Rob Ditro has a few 11th-hour

The start of a new school year begins this week for Tampa Bay schools. As parents rush to get last-minute school supplies and end-of-summer haircuts, Dunedin resident Rob Ditro has a few 11th-hour items on his to-do list, too, as he prepares to deliver nearly 2,000 backpacks filled with school supplies to needy students in Pinellas and Pasco counties.

The donations are a part of the Backpack Lady Project, a nonprofit Ditro founded to honor his late mother, Phyllis, who lost her battle with multiple sclerosis and emphysema 12 years ago.

“My mom was born and raised in South Philadelphia,” her son Rob said. “She was old-school Italian Catholic. A little rough around the edges, but everyone loved her.”

Phyllis Ditro moved south to Dunedin in the 1980s so she could be near the Philadelphia Phillies’ spring training campus in Clearwater.

“Eventually, the whole family ended up here,” Ditro said.

Years later, it was only by chance that her son would stumble across his mother’s secret.

Ditro was paying his children’s tuition at Our Lady of Lourdes in Dunedin when he happened to notice two backpacks sitting on the counter.

They happened to be identical to two his saw at his mother’s home just the week before. So, he asked the receptionist where they came from.

“She told me, ‘Every year, a lady walks in, drops off two backpacks and says they are for the kids. She never says anything, just walks in, drops off the backpacks and leaves. So, we’ve nicknamed her the backpack lady,’” Ditro recalled.

As family were preparing for Phyllis’ funeral, Ditro said he remembered the story and posted it online.

“Sixty-six backpacks showed up at her funeral,” he said. “That’s where the Backpack Lady Project was born.”

Just 12 years later, those 66 backpacks have grown to 2,000.

“Every year just keeps growing and growing,” Ditro said. “It started with 66 backpacks and then that became 500 backpacks.

“Each year, I’d ask for just one more backpack than the previous year,” he continued. “And it’s been gradually growing ever since.”

The first 10 to 12 backpacks he donated at Our Lady of Lourdes, but since then, he has donated to more than 90 schools in Pinellas County. This year, he has decided to branch out and hopes to donate 1,000 backpacks in Pasco County this year.

“I want to build this thing,” he said. “I want to help kids all over the state.”

The Backpack Lady Project primarily focuses on elementary schools, but Ditro will donate to middle and high schools if the need presents itself.

Ditro said that through his work with various schools for the past 12 years, he estimates that the average teacher will put in about $1,200 of his or her own money every year to help kids with backpacks and supplies.

“I don’t feel that’s their responsibility,” he said. “That’s why I feel it’s important to keep doing this, to keep growing it.”

Before delivering the backpacks, Ditro hosts stuffing parties with volunteers he has affectionately nicknamed “Backpack Angels.”

During one such party in early August, Ditro and 40 volunteers stuffed 1,008 backpacks in just 20 minutes.

Ditro currently has 26 backpack drop-off boxes at various Pinellas County locations.

“It was incredible,” he said.

When asked what his mother would think of the legacy he has cultivated for her, Ditro just laughed.

“She wouldn’t want the attention, I can tell you that,” he said. “But I think she’d be proud.”

For more information about The Backpack Lady Project, visit www.thebackpackladyproject.com.

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