Olivia Marshall, 13, Lawrence, passes boxes of food and clothing down a line of volunteers Saturday. Marshall and area United Methodist church families participated Saturday in the 30th annual Bishop's Round-Up for Hunger at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds.

Hundreds of boxes were filled with school supplies, food items and health kits for the needy, as parishioners from the United Methodist Church of East Kansas Conference gathered at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds for Saturday’s 30th annual Bishop’s Round-Up for Hunger.

The items were collected as part of the church’s efforts to distribute goods to people as far west as Junction City, south to the Oklahoma border, north to the Nebraska border and east to the Missouri border. Twenty-four agencies from around the state and more than 300 churches retrieved the items from the fairground.

Ron Williams, who collected monetary donations at the event, said the church raised $209,000 in last year’s Bishop’s Round-Up.

“For us, it helps us feed a large portion of our socio-economically stressed people in our community,” said Harry Disbrow, pastor of Otterbein United Methodist Church in Chanute. “It’s a great mission.”

“For us, it’s very worthwhile : . It’s just another way to help your brother and sister and community. These kinds of things connect us,” said Rodney Evans, who came from Monticello United Methodist Church in Shawnee.

Disbrow said the efforts of the church and its volunteers made a big difference in the lives of families who received the supplies.

“It helps to aid these families to have food on their table,” he said. “You can see how pleased they are” when they receive care packages.

Hundreds of volunteers from Methodist churches across the eastern part of the state unloaded vehicles laden with boxes of supplies, ranging from food, bedding, paper products, clothing and more.

Many were teenagers involved in the churches’ youth programs.

They stood in lines trailing out of the fairground barns, passing boxes of goods to one another and placing them in pick-up trucks, moving vans and even horse trailers, which transported the supplies back to area churches and agencies for distribution to the needy.

Nadine Yenkey, a Topeka resident who organized this year’s event, said missionaries in Haiti and Mexico would also receive care packages collected at Saturday’s event.