Amazon donates 150 school supply bags to Tony Pontes Public School students

July 31, 2025 · 0 Comments

By Riley Murphy

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Amazon representatives visited Tony Pontes Public School in Caledon this week to distribute 150 bags of school supplies to students during their first week back to school.

Students who attend Tony Pontes Public School follow the Balanced School Year Calendar, which features a shorter summer break than the regular calendar, but more breaks during the rest of the year.

Although their learning spans the year, students attending the Balanced Calendar School will receive the same number of instructional days as all Peel students.

These students just returned from their July break on Monday, and what better way to kick off returning to school than brand new school supplies.

The bags held items such as notebooks, pens, scissors, erasers, sharpeners, pencil cases, highlighters, and more.

Amanda Zarifopoulos, General Manager’s Assistant with Amazon, shared that Amazon encourages all associates to give back.

As a very large company, she said Amazon can truly make an impact through volunteering.

They brainstormed a few ideas, and one of them was to donate 500 bags of school supplies.

They had a budget to produce 150 bags and applied for a grant to help create and distribute 350 more, which was approved.

She said the Balanced School Calendar worked out extremely well for this idea, allowing them to distribute the 150 now and give out 350 in September.

Raffalina Cosentino, an area manager with Amazon, said when Zarifopoulos put the idea out, she volunteered right away.

Cosentino said she was a member of the parents’ association for her daughter’s school, and says she knows what a struggle it is to fundraise and make money for things the schools need.

“To actually be here and then see it going to the kids is actually really rewarding,” said Cosentino. “It’s such a great cause.”

Zarifopoulos shared she also used to volunteer at her kids’ school, and said knowing how the kids will respond is a great feeling.

“[Amazon is] a great company in terms of what they want us to do, and by giving back, the message that they send to the associates, people that work there, is a really positive one of getting out there and giving back to the community, which is what we’re trying to do,” said Zarifopoulos.

Anthony Barron, General Manager working out of an Amazon facility in Calgary, said the event was “tremendously humbling.”

“We often think about giving back and doing these volunteer or donation events, and you don’t always get to see the end result of it all. Walking into the room and seeing the faculty and all the students, along with the overall appreciation, was truly remarkable. It just shows what the impact we can have,” says Barron. “We often say we ship boxes, but we do so much more in our communities that I think when we bring that to the forefront, it shows the impact it has. Especially this young group of students, having supplies to be able to start their day. This shows that we can empower them to continue to learn and really succeed in this next year of school.”

In the future, Barron said, they hope to look at branching out from just back to school and looking at the whole calendar year.

“From my view, it’s a chance for us not only to partner with one school within the community and see if there’s ways to give back in numerous ways, meeting so many great people today, it’s also a great chance to see where we can do more. I think for me, it’s a good step forward to having a foot in the door to be able to expand this partnership further.”

Principal Mohan Mathews led the students in saying thank you to Amazon.

He spoke on the importance of the words “thank you” and “volunteer”, and what it truly means to give back and the meaning of kindness.

Stan Cameron, Trustee for Caledon Peel District School Board, said the principal’s focus for Tony Pontes Public School is kindness.

“What we’re about to experience in the receiving end of kindness is what our Amazon friends are bringing us today,” said Cameron.

He helped organize the event and shared, “before they knew it,” the act of gift-giving had been arranged.

Grade Two and Three classes created individual thank-you messages, each colourfully written on a Bristol board and read aloud by the students.

Students were then able to line up and collect their bags from the “Thank you Amazon” table that students from Tony Pontes Public School had put together.

They then filed out of the gym, eager to start their new school season with brand new supplies.