LEWISTON – Local schoolchildren may still be able to get free backpacks and supplies through Dot Treadwell and the Downtown Neighborhood Association next year.

That is if Shaw’s Supermarkets and other donors have anything to say about it.

“I don’t want to see Dot lose any momentum. I want to keep her going,” said Dan Perreault, an assistant manager at Shaw’s in Lewiston.

On Friday, in a story in the Sun Journal, Treadwell announced that she and her small band of volunteers were not getting the help they needed and could no longer run the 8-year-old giveaway that brought school supplies to hundreds of poor students. Treadwell planned to hand out the last of her 150 backpacks and supplies this week.

But when Perreault saw the story, he had another idea. Shaw’s was working with Cradles to Crayons, a New England-based nonprofit, to provide school supplies to kids at Martel and Longley elementary schools. He thought Cradles to Crayons could help Treadwell, too.

He worked Friday to facilitate a meeting between Treadwell and Cradles to Crayons officials. His goals: help more kids this year and save the giveaway for the future.

“I want to do this for Dot this year, right now,” he said.

Treadwell also heard from a woman who wanted to help sponsor a giveaway next year, anonymously.

Treadwell, who often spends her own limited funds to buy school supplies, still hopes another group will take over all the organization. But by Friday afternoon she said she was cautiously optimistic about the giveaway’s future

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