Like communities all over the country, Milwaukeeans are coming out in force to help rescuers on site at ground zero of the World Trade Center bombings in New York.

One unique effort, led by America's Second Harvest of Wisconsin, brought volunteers from OnMilwaukee.com to pack 500 backpacks of food and water. As part of "Project 9-11," OnMilwaukee.com owners and employees spent Monday afternoon on the assembly line at the agency's north side warehouse.

"Our goal is to send 1,000 backpacks to New York by the end of the month," said Bonnie Bellehumer, president and CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank. "We want to ensure rescue workers have a ready, easy-to-distribute supply of nutritious food."

The canvas backpacks include high-protein snack foods, bottled water, juice and fruit packs. Milwaukeeans can donate online at www.secondharvestwi.org.

"We were eager to help out any way we could," said Andy Tarnoff, co-owner and co-founder of OnMilwaukee.com. "Each one of our full-time employees pitched in today, and I'm proud that we could do our share to make the job of the rescuers a little easier."

America's Second Harvest of Wisconsin is the largest private non-profit distributor of food in the state. The food bank distributes more than 10 million pounds of food yearly to 1,100 shelters, pantries and meal programs. About 354,000 people in Wisconsin receive food from these programs. To learn about how you can help, call (414) 831-6335.