FIFE, Wash. -- While Joint Base Lewis-McChord is still waiting to hear whether it will house hundreds of undocumented children crossing the border, some youth in the Puget Sound area are already doing what they can to help.

With summer in full swing, 16-year-old AJ Sailiai could be doing anything. So he and some 30 other kids chose to be at the World Vision Pacific Northwest storehouse in Fife.

"When I think about what I’m going through and what they’re going through, I’m living a paradise compared to what they’ve gone through and seen," said Sailiai.


The youth volunteers were stuffing backpacks with supplies and writing notes of encouragement to kids they may never meet.

 "We had backpacks and we filled them with either a teddy bear or blanket and we had toothpaste and shampoo and pencils and colored pencils and crayons," said 11-year old Haley Mounsey.  

Program organizers said getting the youth involved can be an eye-opening experience.

 "I saw the youth from the White Center area, Our Future Matters, who have their own obstacles and challenges, but took their time to give back," said Reed Slattery with World Vision.

Two-hundred backpacks will go to undocumented children caught in the U.S. border crisis, after escaping a life of violence and poverty in Central America.

 "It makes me think about all those poor kids and what it would be like to be one of them and how sad it would be," said Mounsey.

All the supplies were donated by corporate partners of World Vision, the humanitarian organization headquartered in Federal Way.