MARYSVILLE – If you still are in need of school supplies, and you don’t want to deal with red tape, you still have an opportunity Sunday to meet your needs before school starts Wednesday.

Abundant Faith International Christian Center will be handing out 150 colorful new backpacks with supplies and 75 lunch packs starting at 10:15 a.m. Lunch will be provided and gift cards will be awarded by raffle.

Church members Eneille Nelson, Javonda Parker and Jill Otto were among the seven who put school supplies into the backpacks last Sunday. Items include: pens, pencils, scissors, glue, erasers, crayons, colored pencils, index cards, spiral notebooks and more. The congregation of about 100 raised $3,000 for the effort. “We shopped very wisely,” said Nelson, who is also principal at Kellogg Marsh Elementary. She was instrumental in telling the congregation of the need for such an effort.

Many other groups in town, including the Marysville School District, fund similar drives.

“Others have red tape. We remove the barriers. It’s all out of love,” Nelson said.

The church has been letting people know about their effort in Marysville, Lakewood and Arlington, through social media, websites and organizations like food banks, boys and girls clubs, the YMCA, the Salvation Army, the commissary and schools, including Everett Community College.

They intentionally have invited people in need because those are the ones they want to see benefit from their effort.

Nelson said last year, in their first year of doing the project, one mother of three boys was overwhelmed by the gifts.

“It lifted a burden off her,” Nelson said.

The effort is one of many the church has done to help others in the community. They have given out Thanksgiving dinners, provided gas giveaways and gone out to feed the homeless in shelters and even in the woods.

“We are here,” Nelson said of the church, located at 13917 Smokey Point Blvd. “We help others from the heart.”