"This is the busy time:" Wisconsin company getting students ready for a new school year

JACKSON -- Do you have everything on your child's school supply list? Chances are, you may still have a couple left to buy. A Wisconsin business is trying to make sure that doesn't happen -- and claims to take the hassle out of back-to-school shopping. But it requires some advanced planning.

Nothing reminds people that a new school year is approaching like the sight of fresh folders and glue. In a small Jackson warehouse, it feels like the first day of school all summer long.

"This is the busy time. This is when everything happens," said Gene Schulist, the president of School-Pak.

At School-Pak, an assembly line of high school and college students spend their summers filling boxes with notebooks, highlighters and glue sticks. Those boxes will eventually end up in the hands of students across the country.

"We will probably do 20,000 to 22,000 boxes that we'll package. We'll use about 920 different products," explained Schulist.

Gene Schulist, President of School-Pak

Schulist runs School-Pak, which works with school districts in several districts across Wisconsin and the United States to fulfill students' school supplies lists.

"We will make about 3,700 different configurations," Schulist said.

Tanner Rattray works at School-Pak. He said his summer job makes him a little nostalgic for past first days of school, but not for back-to-school shopping.

"I see orders for like third, fourth, fifth grades and I think back to the time when I needed things like construction paper for school," Rattray said. "My mom will tell you I probably did not have the best time."

Tanner Rattray works at School-Pak over the summer.

Weeks before the first day of school, families arrived at a Brown Deer hotel to pick up their boxes.

In all, School-Pak packaged more than 1.3 million items last year and said its prices are competitive to shopping in stores even claiming you'll save up to five percent.

"Plus, the fact that you're not spending any time traveling. You're not spending any gas money at all. It's a savings," Schulist said.

If you want to use School-Pak, your child's school needs to provide lists to the company. It starts taking orders in March and the last orders are currently being filled.

School-Pak is no longer taking orders for the 2017-2018 school year. However, it is taking lists already for the 2018-2019 school year.