Photos by Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Angel Watson (center) waits to receive a backpack during the Back to School Blast on Monday at The Freedom Center.

Cody Procter (center) puts a school supply pack in his new backpack during the Back to School Blast on Monday evening at the Freedom Center. Sponsors included the Norfolk Southern Volunteer Council, StellarOne and the Southeast Action Forum.

The event featured a supply giveaway, haircuts, health screenings and live music. People began to line up an hour before the 6 p.m. start time.

The new bookbags were stacked tall against the chain-link fence at The Freedom Center church of Roanoke on Monday night.

Each bag was different -- some bore the face of Spider-Man or SpongeBob or Cinderella, others were solid colors or patterns -- but all of them were waiting for their new owners and about to start a long, busy and important trip.

The bags were collected for the Rescue Mission of Roanoke's Back to School Blast, at which low-income families with children could receive free backpacks, school supplies, health screenings and fingerprinting. Haircuts also were offered by more than 40 stylists from the group Angels with Scissors.

Monday night, a long line formed at the center's basketball court, where the giveaway was held.

"We're prepared for more kids this year than last year," said Lee Clark, director of development and administration at the Rescue Mission. They recently added preregistration as a requirement to help streamline the process.

Clark said 325 people had registered. By the end of the night, the final tally of attendees was about 550. That's an increase from the approximately 300 students they helped last year.

Mission staff member Becca Popp said this year's Blast had been in the works since May.

"The community has been great, and it's not hard to get supplies and donations," she explained, citing the Norfolk Southern Volunteer Council, StellarOne and the Southeast Action Forum among other donors. "But there are a lot of details that go into it."

Ten-year-old Maceo Jackson came with his mother and sister. A half-hour before the event they were at the back of the line, just beyond the center's driveway.

But people gathered so quickly that by the 6 p.m. start time the line had extended up Seventh Street to Bullitt Avenue, and Maceo was in the middle.

"I'm in fifth grade at East Salem Elementary," Maceo said. "I want a new backpack."

He and hundreds of other students got their wish, including a tiny girl with blond braids who selected a miniscule Little Mermaid bookbag that was no bigger than a purse.

"I remember that pack," volunteer Alice Hicks exclaimed as she watched its young owner carry it away. "We didn't know whether to count it or not, because of its size, but we did.

"It was just for her."