SCOUTING FOR FOOD: TODAY'S THE PICKUP DAY

Energetic Boy Scouts and fraternity members will be roaming area neighborhoods today scouting for food -- a task hopefully made easier by hundreds of residents who have put canned goods on their front doors.

It's the 15th year for Scouting for Food, an effort that locally helps supply the Salvation Army, Fish, Safe House for Women, Gibson Recovery Center, Jackson Ministerial Alliance and Senior Food Pantry.

That's a lot of green beans.

But this year is a little different. The Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity from Southeast Missouri State University and the Boy Scouts have teamed up for the effort instead of conducting separate driver that could have confused donors.

In addition to helping Scouts with their door-to-door collections, fraternity members will set up stations at grocery stores, handing shoppers bags and lists of needed items.

Scouts distributed food bags last Saturday, and as many as 800 of them will be out collecting. However, if they missed your street with the bag distribution, it doesn't mean you can't help.

Take your canned goods to the 4-H pavilion at Arena Park from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. You don't even have to get out of the car. Helpful Boy Scouts will be there to help with unloading the cans.

It's important to remember, as the Scouts and Lambda Chi Alpha brothers have, that not everybody is enjoying the benefits of our good economy. A warm meal would mean everything to those folks.