It takes a village (and Fulbright scholars) to stuff back packs

Under cloudy skies and the occasional sprinkle, an army of volunteers helped stuff backpacks Saturday for the "Stuff the Bus" campaign of United Way Monterey County.

What a production. It takes a lot of effort to make sure every backpack has a more-or-less even distribution of supplies: pencils, paper, erasers, markers, notebooks. Because the need is always greater than the available resources, chances are not all the backpacks have the same supplies. At the end, the group ran out of backpacks so the supplies were placed inside recyclable shopping bags.

It's uplifting to see how many in the community care about needy children. Fatima Dias of United Way says that about 1,300 backpacks were stuffed and ready to be delivered today.

Carlos Diaz, coordinator of homeless services for MPUSD, arrived at around noon to pick up the backpacks he'll deliver to students in his district. Last year there were 650 students considered homeless, but chances are not all of them will get a backpack.

And a group of Fulbright international scholars now receiving their training at Monterey Institute of International studies drop by to help. And took tons of pictures.