Area Scouts collect 71,000 items to fill food pantries

Scouts in the Shawnee District surpassed their goal in gathering items for the annual Scouting for Food campaign on Saturday.

Forty-four Cub Scout packs and Boy Scout troops last week distributed 45,000 bags in the district, which is made up of Cape Girardeau, Perry and Bollinger counties as well as Scott City, Chaffee and Advance. On Saturday, Scouts collected 71,305 items, beating the goal of 70,000, said Shawnee District executive Bill Crowell.

"We're real grateful for the generosity," he said. "It was neat to see."

The Shawnee District total last year was 63,000 cans of food.

At New McKendree United Methodist Church in Jackson, bags that came in were loaded into vehicles and dropped off at the church's back door closest to the fellowship hall. At 11 a.m., two hours after the bag collection started, eight pickup trucks and a minivan were queued up to unload. After vehicle owners, representing separate dens, gave an official count of the number of bags, a grocery cart hauled them inside where the sorting process began.

Bags were placed in the back, where eight adult volunteers from the Jackson Ministerial Alliance food pantry and the Boy Scouts opened them and looked for dents in the cans. From there, Scouts sorted them into 17 categories. The cans were counted and loaded into boxes.

"Before this thing even starts, it takes about an hour to get the boxes opened up and taped. We did about 400 boxes," said Patsy Johnson, an adult volunteer for Troop 11 who has participated in Scouting for Food since the first year it was held.

This was the first Scouting for Food drive for Spencer Price, 11, of Cape Girardeau, a Troop 11 Boy Scout. "It makes me feel pretty good doing this," he said. "A lot of people really do need it [the food]. It's worth doing."

Eleven-year-old Bayne Farmer of Jackson Troop 311 said, "The only way I'd miss this is if I was sick."

Crowell said that anyone whose bag was missed Saturday can still donate by taking it to any Union Planters bank this week.

cpagano@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 133