JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) — Operation Homefront teamed up with Food Lion to get military families ready to head back to school.

Operation Homefront gave out over 400 backpacks full of school supplies and grocery items for meals before and after school.

“Military families are heavily impacted by inflation,” said Barbara Herzinger, director of Business Development for Operation Homefront.”And if we can ease that burden a little bit and get the kids off to a great start in their school year, it’s a really fun thing to be able to do for them”

“It’s really heartwarming for me to see, especially the kids back there, they’re so joyful and the parents are just so excited to be able to come in here and get backpacks and stuff for school and food. So it really warms our heart to be able to do these things,” said Jeff Williams, a Food Lion manager in Onslow County.

Since Operation Homefront started the back-to-school brigade, they’ve distributed over 500,000 backpacks across the country.