The parish hall at St. Paul Lutheran was a hub of last-minute activity Sunday afternoon as church and community members worked steadily to fill the remaining backpacks for the upcoming Tools 4 Schools giveaway.

On Saturday parents and children will line the streets of Ironton starting at the church and extending down Center Street over to Park Avenue waiting for their chance to pick out backpacks for this school year.

Each one will be filled with age-appropriate materials.

Unwrapping packets of snub-nosed scissors and pencils, the volunteers stuffed them along with bottles of white glue into plastic pencil boxes.

Pulling out a pink eraser from plastic wrap, Lisa Glenn held it up to the group.

“Doesn’t this bring back memories,” she said. “Remember the first day of school and how it good it was to have a new eraser.”

Their goal that afternoon was to fill 250 backpacks before the big day. Across the hall from the assembly-line work station was a Sunday school room loaded with 650 backpacks already stuffed.

This will be the ninth year for the giveaway and St. Paul has teamed up with the congregations of Christ Episcopal Church, First United Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church. Also participating in the event will be All Saints Lutheran Church in Worthington that will bring down 1,200 more filled backpack.

“They will be bringing a pack of people down that Saturday morning,” said Susan McComas, who is handling publicity for the event. “They will have backpacks already packed. People will be getting out of their cars and start working.

The goal is to give away 2,120 backpacks for students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

There is no registration required.

“Just show up,” McComas said. “We want the kids to be able to pick out own book bags.”

If children are unable to attend the event, their parents or guardians will be interviewed to determine if the adults can make the selection.

The giveaway starts at 10 a.m. at the corner of Sixth and Center streets.