ManitobaA group of volunteers are filling 200 backpacks with clothes, non-perishable food and other supplies to help people who are homeless in Winnipeg as winter approaches.Chuck Neufeld continues program in honour of late son, who died from overdose in 2021CBC News · Posted: Oct 22, 2025 5:34 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour agoChuck Neufeld, co-ordinator from Backpacks from Heaven, right, and other volunteers came together Wednesday to fill 200 backpacks with supplies that will be distributed to people who are homeless in Winnipeg. (Radio-Canada)A group of volunteers are filling 200 backpacks with clothes, non-perishable food and other supplies to help people who are homeless in Winnipeg as winter approaches.”The need is so great,” said Chuck Neufeld, the co-ordinator for the Backpacks from Heaven program. “People are excited to get it. It’s like Christmas to them … and they share it with other people on the street. It’s very heartwarming.” The initiative began with Neufeld’s son, Sean, and Sean’s girlfriend, Destiny, who began giving out food and clothing to homeless people.A year later, Destiny died from an accidental overdose, and Sean continued the work with her mother.Neufeld didn’t get involved with assembling the backpacks until 2021, when Sean also died from an overdose.The need for the backpacks has grown in recent years, Neufeld says. This year, the initiative will distribute 200 of the bags. (Radio-Canada)He had started taking Oxycontin after he had been injured at work almost a decade earlier. Neufeld said his son became addicted to the opioid, and died just a week after being released from a treatment centre in February 2021.”He was clean. He was helping people. He was a support counsellor,” Neufeld said.”I was supposed to pick him up on a Saturday. But we had to break down the door to his apartment and we found him in the bathtub.” For the last few years, Neufeld has been working with other volunteers to get new supplies and assemble the backpacks in Sean’s memory. “I wish I didn’t have to do that to honour my son.… I’d rather have him, but that’s not gonna happen. So we want to show love to the people that are getting the backpacks.”Chuck Neufeld, co-ordinator of the Backpacks from Heaven program, says people experiencing homelessness need other supports, including a safe place to stay. (Travis Golby/CBC)The need for the backpacks has been growing steadily in recent years, to the point volunteers decided to increase the number of care packages from 150 last year to 200, said Neufeld.At least 40 volunteers came together Wednesday to pack the bags that will be distributed later this week. More support neededBut Neufeld said people experiencing homelessness need other supports, especially when dealing with addictions. “They’re buying stuff on the street that’s tainted. They don’t have a safe consumption site and there’s no wrap-around services to help these people once they go into treatment,” he said. “They need a place to stay that’s safe.” Neufeld is in support of Manitoba’s government plan to open a 72-hour detention facility where highly intoxicated can be detained. “People going through psychosis, whether it’s brought on from the drugs or mental challenges, have to come down … and there should be some support,” he said. This site at 190 Disraeli Fwy. is where the NDP plans to open the ‘protective care centre,’ or detox site, as early as Nov. 1. Neufeld said he thinks the site will help protect people experiencing drug-induced psychosis. (Rudi Pawlychyn/CBC)Manitoba Addictions Minister Bernadette Smith has said the NDP government hopes to open the “protective care centre” at 190 Disraeli Fwy. on Nov. 1.That depends on passing legislation introduced earlier this month that would extend the length of time a detox centre can hold someone found intoxicated on meth or other drugs. The maximum detention of intoxicated people is currently limited to 24 hours. Neufeld is also in favour of that legislation, saying the 24-hour limit leaves those who are the most intoxicated with too little time to recover, and even less time to get any support.He would also like to see the detox centre have a plan to connect those who are detained with counselling services.”There’s not enough help … and we are sadly lacking, in Winnipeg, of this type of relief, and it is a shame,” Neufeld said.Mitch Bourbonniere, a Winnipeg community activist, wants to see a facility where people experiencing drug-induced psychosis can be detained. ‘I find it heartbreaking to just allow people out on the streets in a psychotic state, suffering,’ he said. (Radio-Canada)Mitch Bourbonniere, a community activist who also helped assemble the backpacks on Wednesday, also wants to see a facility where people going through drug-induced psychosis can be detained to keep them and others safe.”I just find it heartbreaking to not intervene. I find it heartbreaking to just allow people out on the streets in a psychotic state, suffering,” Bourbonniere said.Neufeld said there’s “an explosion of drugs in our streets” right now, and more needs to be done to help those living with addiction.”I just want as a society to help them, bring them into some sort of treatment and protection.”WATCH | Volunteers fill backpacks for Winnipeg’s homeless community:Volunteers fill 200 backpacks for Winnipeg’s homeless communityBackpacks filled with food, supplies and items to help keep people warm will be distributed on Friday to people experiencing homelessness. It’s part of an initiative called Backpacks from Heaven and honours loved ones gone too soon, by giving back. With files from Alana Cole and Radio-Canada’s Morgane Knoll
‘Need is so great,’ says co-ordinator of program that fills backpacks for homeless Winnipeggers
