Scouts hold annual food drive Saturday

Plans are in place for the 29th annual Scouting for Food campaign, billed as the Cape Girardeau area's largest single-day food drive.

On Saturday, more than 30,000 Scouts from throughout the Greater St. Louis Area Council will distribute nearly 1 million bags in area neighborhoods and return on Nov. 16 to collect the bags filled with donated, nonperishable food items, according to a news release from the Boy Scouts.

In the Cape Girardeau area, Scouts will deliver the donations to local food pantries. Within 48 hours of the Scouts' pickup, the first donations will be on food pantry shelves, the release said.

The Greater St. Louis Area Council, which includes the city of St. Louis, 27 counties in eastern Missouri and 10 counties in Southern Illinois, collects enough food on that one day to account for 20 percent to 30 percent of area food pantries' yearly supply and can keep their shelves stocked for up to four months, the release said.