Operation Backpack: Who benefits most from your giving

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The connection between a successful start to the school year, and arriving prepared with all the right supplies is abundantly clear to mother, Amarilis Navarrete.

"It's pretty exciting for them to have new stuff, and open it like toys. They have it all in one corner of the house. They're ready to go with new backpacks."

A couple of years ago, Amarilis discovered the YMCA's Operation Backpack to help her two kids, Gabriela and Allan. They aren't sure what they would do without the help.

"My desk would be empty," said Gabriela.

It's that fear, Amarilis tells us, which led one mother she knows to keep her kids home from school.

"She said she's not going to send her daughter, because she doesn't have the supplies," said Amarilis. "They feel like, I don't want my kid to be center of attention because they don't have the backpack, or they don't have the supplies."

That's when Amarilis connected the family to YMCA Operation Backpack.

"She was smiling, she was happy because she doesn't have to worry about who is going to take care of her daughter. She can go to work, and her daughter is going to be at school," said Amarilis.

Operation Backpack has a goal of giving away 100,000 backpacks filled with supplies, to families in need, according to the YMCA's Heather Saucier, "It may be just a small donation to you, but it's just huge to these kids and the families that receive them."