Backpack'd: Kelsie Norman, middle, gave away more than 100 backpacks to middle school students at TechBoston Academy on Monday. Photo by Bill Forry

Kelsie Norman is no stranger to the halls of TechBoston Academy, the grade 6-12 school that now occupies the old Dorchester High building on Peacevale Road. She graduated from TechBoston back in 2008 and has gone on to become a college graduate and a sheet metal worker.

But Norman’s formative years were here at TechBoston, where she found herself with the help of mentors like Keith Love and guidance counselor Jillian Smith.

Noman, now 24, has been an active alumna and was called in last spring to speak to the graduating class. On Monday, she returned to the old campus again. This time, she came with a caravan of supply-laden backpacks for the academy’s sixth graders. It was the first official donation of Backpack’d, a non-profit that Norman and her partner, Ashley Summers, have launched to help parents and kids shoulder the burden of school supplies.

Her goal for Backpack’d is to see the program grow and eventually eliminate the cost of school supplies for all Boston public school students.

Norman grew up in Codman Square and admits that she was hardly the ideal student when she began her TechBoston career.

“They shaped me,” Norman told the Reporter as she waited to hand out the backpacks in the school’s cafeteria on Monday morning. “I was a bad little kid.”

Smith, TechBoston’s director of student support, said that Norman was “super-bright and super-motivated” student who faced serious obstacles to staying in school, but perservered and, eventually, excelled. She went on to graduate from Emmanuel College. “She’s just very special.”
The backpacks handed out to the class of 2021 include pencils, erasers, index cards, highlighters and other items that the kids will need for their academic duties this year.

“We raised $2,000 through my own network,” said Norman of the project’s inaugural backpack giveaway. “A lot of people want to see me succeed.”