5th annual "Fill the Backpack" fundraiser takes place at Chico's Silver Dollar Speedway

CHICO - Calif. — Friday night marks the 5th annual Fill the Backpack fundraiser in Chico, which raises money for the Butte County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue team.

Hours before the fundraiser began, Kevin Tuck and Dennis Schmidt, two volunteers with Butte County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue, loaded up their supplies.

The Search and Rescue team is made up of unpaid volunteers, and everything from their uniforms to their rescue equipment is paid for through donations.

"Most of the time our rescues are done out in a back woods out in the middle of nowhere and people can't see what we do," Schmidt said. "This gives a chance for us to showcase our capabilities and how we affect rescues and searches."

How it works is simple.

Crowds gather at the Speedway to watch sprint car racing, and once the stands are full, six backpacks are handed out. The goal is for people to fill the backpacks up with cash and checks as they're passed around.

The fundraiser is the brainchild of Kevin Tuck, who's long had a passion for search and rescue, as well as sprint car racing.

"I thought it would be cool to see if I could bring both of them together," Tuck said. "So I asked the team if we wanted to have a race night out there. Silver Dollar Speedway allowed us to do that, and now for five years in a row we've had a search and rescue night at Silver Dollar Speedway."

There was even a live search and rescue demonstration put on by the volunteers during the event.

All proceeds go to additional fire evacuation gear for the Search and Rescue crew. Fill the Backpack usually raises around $5,000 every year.