The Blackwater Baptist Association is extending an invitation to all for its “Youth Encounter” this weekend, and it needs a lot of helping hands to help pack 20,000 meals.

The food will be given to Suffolk, Isle of Wight County and Southampton County’s public school systems for the “Love in a Backpack” program, which provides meals for the weekend for children from disadvantaged areas.

“They send it home with the children for them to have food on the weekend,” said Nancy Greene, administrator of the Blackwater Baptist Association, which is a cooperative of 25 Baptist churches in the area. “Six individuals can eat from that meal.”

The packing portion of the event will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at YMCA Camp Arrowhead, 275 Kenyon Road.

“Then we’re going to give the kids a time to go play all the games and activities on the facility,” Greene said.

The students in grades sixth through 12th will then regroup for dinner together and a worship service at the facility’s amphitheater, led by the Old Dominion University Baptist Collegiate Ministry and ending about 8 p.m.

This is not the first youth encounter that the association has done, but this is the first to include a mission project and to take place at Camp Arrowhead.

“We’ve been doing youth encounters for several years,” Greene said. “It’s just an outreach for the youth in the area to come together. We’ve been doing it in local churches, but this year we decided to do something different and do the mission project with it.”

Greene said youth from any local church, Baptist or not, are welcome as long as they call ahead.

“We’re kind of planning for 400, but we need to know ahead of time,” Greene said.

For more information about this Saturday’s event, call 242-4131.