LEWISTON – Dot Treadwell still remembers how embarrassed she felt carrying her school things in a paper sack.

Her family couldn’t afford backpacks or book bags. And the other students noticed.

“You never live it down,” she said.

So decades later, armed with surplus backpacks and new supplies, she works desperately to make sure no other children have to endure such ridicule.

“You’re always known as the poor kid,” she said, stuffing a green backpack with paper and a three-ring binder during Lewiston’s annual Downtown Neighborhood Association school bag and supply giveaway.

In eight years, Treadwell and a small band of volunteers have given away more than 1,000 backpacks and supplies to some of the area’s poorest children.

This year will be the last. They aren’t getting enough donations, enough help, enough money.

They say they just can’t do it anymore.

Created in the late 1990s, the giveaway first drew 350 people and about 20 volunteers, with money and supplies coming from local organizations and businesses. The association hosted back-to-school block parties with free food and expensive prizes, offering supply-filled backpacks to every child who wanted one, no questions asked.

But gradually, donations dropped off as other charities sought help from the same donors Treadwell and her Downtown Neighborhood Association counted on. Volunteers fell away and the organization dwindled.

This year, Treadwell and a handful of others ran the entire giveaway. She said they dropped the block party because some parents swore at her during last year’s event when she didn’t have enough backpacks to meet demand.

With help from local police and other donors, they cobbled together enough stuff for 150 backpacks this year. They had requests for many, many more.

“I’ve had 30 calls just this morning,” Treadwell said Thursday, a day after she stopped taking reservations.

She told every new caller the same thing: “I’m sorry.”

Angela Roy and her friend, Amy Forsythe, were two of the lucky ones. They called ahead and got five backpacks reserved for their kids. They were among the first to arrive at the B-Street Community Center to pick up their stuff. Green canvas for the boys. Black and purple for the girls. All filled with pencils, paper, crayons or markers, 3-ring binders or folders.

“Thank you so much, you guys. This is awesome,” said Roy as a volunteer handed her a couple of backpacks.

A single mother of two, Roy said there was no way she could have afforded the supplies on her children’s class supply list. The school wanted them to bring $50 worth of stuff, including calculators, special binders and certain color notebooks.

“Right down to having them bring their own tissues,” she said.

The Downtown Neighborhood Association’s backpacks saved her about $60.

Tina Hutchinson said her teenage daughter was expected to bring $100 worth of supplies to high school this year. “Just for the basics,” she said.

The sophomore would have been forced to use last year’s worn book bag, or nothing at all. Instead, she got a new black backpack filled with supplies.

“I think they need more donations to help more people,” Hutchinson said.

Treadwell couldn’t agree more. Although she got enough stuff to help 150 kids, she knows many more need help.

Living on a fixed income, Treadwell has a budget so tight that she can’t afford a car. Nevertheless, she routinely kicks in $200 or more each year to buy backpacks or the glue sticks, pencils and crayons that fill them.

To stretch the giveaway even further, she accepts castoff items from Bates College and spends her free time scrubbing worn vinyl binders clean or tearing the used pages from spiral notebooks. She gives those away to families who didn’t call in time to reserve the new backpacks and supplies.

“I want to make sure the kids who really need help get it,” she said.

But after eight years of work, Treadwell said she’s too burned out to continue.

She will give away her last backpack this afternoon. She hopes another group will take up the cause next year. She’s willing to volunteer. She’ll probably even make up a few backpacks on her own when she learns of a particularly needy family. But Treadwell said she just can’t organize it all again.

Even though she wants to.

“I’m going to feel guilty,” she said.