Hall, a rehabilitation assistant at the St. Catharines-based health centre, found the hectic activity of boxes being unpacked, 2,700 backpacks loaded with books and binders and highlighters, and everything loaded on to a waiting bus to be exhilarating."I think it's absolutely amazing," she said amid the beehive of activity inside an Enbridge gas warehouse in Thorold Aug. 26. "We're a good, hard-working team."

But the reality that so many thousands of Niagara kids are in need of basic supplies was sobering, as well.

"We didn't know there were this many needy kids here," she said.

"It's a huge eye-opener."

The Shaver workers were taking part in the sixth annual Day of Caring program run by the United Way St. Catharines and District. The backpacks were being delivered via a donated St. Catharines Transit bus to both the Catholic and public school boards, to Family and Children's Services Niagara and to Community Care of St. Catharines and Thorold.

Nancy Di Pasquale, director of community investment and communications for the United Way, said school principals will then either arrange for parents to pick up the backpacks for their kids, or have the backpacks waiting in school offices and the students will be quietly asked to go pick them up.

"It's done very discreetly," she said.

Along with school supplies, each backpack was outfitted with a brochure inside listed various support services for youth in Niagara.

Di Pasquale said many children in Niagara come from households where money is so tight that even the purchase of a backpack might be out of reach. The United Way program helps to ensure kids from those families get to fit in with their peers -- key to their self-esteem, she said.

"They may not have new clothes, they may not have new running shoes, (but) at least with a new backpack they feel the same as every other kid," she said.

The backpacks, which were outfitted according to various grade groups, were made possible by the generosity of numerous sponsors such as teacher associations and service clubs, and businesses providing supplies at cost, said Dipasquale.