So tonight, teachers from seven elementary schools in Salt Lake City will converge at the Hellenic Memorial Cultural Center and pick up backpacks full of school supplies, as well as hygiene kits, for 700 low-income students.

The goodies are courtesy of volunteers from the Philoptochos (friends of the poor) Society of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral.

They raised the money for the project from donations, bake sales and other fundraising events and from Greek Church organizations.

The schools whose students will benefit from the project include Edison, Lincoln, Jackson, Escalante, Meadowlark, Newman and Oquirrh elementary schools.

Along with Hatzipolakis, who heads the Philoptochos backpack committee, other prime movers of the project are Kristy Pappas, Nitsa Tsoutsounis and Mary Kambouris. "But it's more than our committee," insists the chairwoman. "It's a lot of wonderful donors and volunteers who are the heroes of this project. They can't be thanked enough."

Double duty: Magna residents received some badly needed assistance from their Salt Lake County Council representative, Michael Jensen, recently, but it was in an unexpected way.

Those residents attending a Magna Community Council meeting at the local Senior Citizen Center the evening of July 17 noticed a brush fire developing across the street that potentially threatened nearby buildings.

Jensen, who was driving by, grabbed an extinguisher he had in his SUV and doused the flames within minutes, according to a story Wednesday in The MagÂna Times.

Jensen, besides being a county council member, is deputy chief of the United Fire Authority.

Spreading good deeds: Barbara Crane of Taylorsville was devastated Tuesday by heavy storms she described as a mini-hurricane that left her garage and basement flooded with nine inches of water.

But her grief was overshadowed by the goodness she found all around her.

"First, there is the Taylorsville police officer who saved my car by driving it out of my garage," she said. "Then there is the Home Depot disaster crew of four men who brought pumps, buckets and sandbags to get the water out. And there are all the neighbors and strangers who helped get the water out."

Thanks, she says, to them all.

And more good cheer: Adam Nash, who bought a new Nintendo Wii for the Columbus Senior Citizens Center after I reported the center's had been stolen, says the response to his gesture has been overwhelming. "I have received handwritten thank-you cards from over 100 residents and employees of Columbus and a personal invitation-challenge to come over for a game of bowling" on the Wii, he says.

prolly@sltrib.com