Scouting For Food Helps Neighbors

In 21 years, Food City and the Sequoyah Boy Scouts of America Council have collected more than 4 million canned food items through their annual “Scouting for Food” food drive.

Local food pantry staff said this year’s drive, which runs through Saturday, is especially vital because food items in stock are dwindling and demand for services is growing.

“Not only is our food supply running low, our cash is too,” Jim White, who manages the Bristol Emergency Food Pantry, told the Herald Courier this week.

Scouts distribute collection bags and leave them on citizens’ front doors with a note asking residents to fill the bag with canned goods, dry goods or any non-perishable food items. Anything in glass containers are not accepted. Scouts will return to the homes on Saturday to collect the filled bags, which are left on front porches.

The food collected through the drive will benefit the Bristol Emergency Food Pantry. Eight community agencies refer needy families to the pantry; those agencies include Faith in Action, the Bristol, Va., Department of Social Services and the Bristol, Tenn., Department of Human Services.

Once they’ve identified a family needing help, these agencies issue a voucher that admits them to the pantry for food. The pantry usually processes about 300 of these vouchers each month, meaning it helps about 300 families get the food they need.

But need is growing. White told the Herald Courier that in October, the food pantry processed 441 vouchers. Participating agencies have been asked to issue only one voucher per family per month because the demand is so high.

Bristol residents are historically generous, and Scouting for Food normally brings in enough canned goods to fill the food pantry’s back room and provide backup supplies for several months. White estimated that the Bristol food pantry collected 20 tons of food last year through the Scouting for Food program.

The Sequoyah Council of Scout troops covers 16 counties in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee, from Grundy, Va., to Greeneville, Tenn. Scouts from those troops have distributed more than 140,000 bags to their communities.

Food City is one of the Sequoyah Council’s main partners for Scouting for Food. The company donates the bags for the drive and collects food from people who didn’t get a bag but still want to donate. Food City spokesman Tom Hembree expects Scouting for Food to bring in 20,000 canned food items this year.

This is an incredibly easy way to help your neighbors – take the bag left at your door and fill it with items you have in your pantry. Then give it to the Scouts when they come back tomorrow to collect. And if you didn’t get a bag and want to donate food, bring items to any Food City location.