SCOUTING FOR FOOD: DRIVE IN CAPE GIRARDEAU ALONE NETS ALMOST 14,000 CANS TO AID THE NEEDY

A Scouting for Food drive resulted in the collection of 13,900 cans of food Saturday in the Cape Girardeau area alone.

Canned goods were collected by scouts in the entire region served by the Southeast Missouri Boy Scout Council, but only figures from the Cape Girardeau food drive were reported Saturday.

Last year 11,000 cans of food were collected in the Cape Girardeau area.

This year the Boy Scouts teamed up with the Area Wide United Way to collect canned food items.

"All the bags were just stacked with the canned goods," Bob Hoppmann, Scouting for Food chairman for the Cape Girardeau area, said Saturday. "The scouts went around door to door and picked up the plastic bags that had been dropped off last Saturday."

He estimated more than 1,000 Boy Scouts and adult leaders participated in the food drive.

The food collected was taken to the A.C. Brase Arena Building for distribution to FISH, the Salvation Army and the Gibson Center, Hoppmann said.

In announcing the food drive, Tony Smee, district executive for the Boy Scouts, said: "This is our national good turn. We thought, Who better than the United Way to help us?"

Tom Johnson, program director for the scout council, said in preparation for the food drive recently that it is designed to make it easy for people to donate.

"People don't have to leave their home, and they know the food will be used locally," Johnson said.