Although public school bells won't be ringing for a few more weeks, that didn't stop parents and chilfen from getting a jump on collecting some charitable offerings of school supplies on Saturday.
With the help of former Texarkana, Texas, residents Shalonda Washington and her husband, Tarvaris Washington, more than 100 parents and their children, who were pre-registered to receive backpacks full of free school supplies, streamed into the the Southwest Center for the first Back To School Bash.
The couple, who now live in Springfield, Virginia, said they hope to come back each year and turn the bash into an annual event the first weekend of every August.
"We were both born here and we grew up here in Texarkana and we both graduated from Texas High School," Shalonda Washington said. "I was in the class of '94 and my husband was in the Class of '96. We want to do this just as a way of giving back to the community we grew up in. We want to do this every year for now on and we plan to."
The couple flew down from Virginia to Dallas before driving up to Texarkana. Here, the couple shopped and locally bought 150 school backpacks for 150 registered child recipients, and all the packs contained school supplies.
"We first got the idea to do this last year because we knew of a mail man who did the same thing," she said.
The couple brought six volunteers from Virginia to help with the event as well as four other volunteers from Dallas. Roughly another 25 local volunteers participate in the three-hour event.
Besides backpack distributions, the bash also included food, games and face painting for all the children.
Of the 150 registered recipients, about 140 of them came with their parents and took home their packs of supplies. The remaining packs were raffled off.
Shalonda Washington, who works for the Department of Defense, estimated that at least 300 people came out to the event altogether.
"All you need is hard work and determination to make something like this happen," she said.
As for Tarvaris Washington, who recently retired from the Navy after 20 years service, he said the Southwest Center proved to be a great place to hold the event.
"We had plenty of room here for the occasion, and we look forward to coming back next year," he said.