Sorting canned goods last year are members of Girl Scout Troop 3327 of West Ox Baptist Church in Chantilly. Photo by Bonnie Hobbs.
It is surprising to many people in Northern Virginia that there are hungry families right in their midst. Many individuals and families do not earn enough to meet basic monthly expenses such as food, housing, and transportation. More than 76,000 county residents are at risk of experiencing hunger. They are food insecure which means they don’t always know where their next meal is coming from.
Each year, local Boy Scouts in the Sully District conduct a food drive so families in need will have something to eat. Michael Adere, who has organized the Sully District Scouting for Food Drive for 12 years, said, “The Boy Scout slogan is to “Do a good turn daily,” and in the Boy Scout Oath, a Boy Scout promises to help other people at all times. By participating in the Scouting for Food Drive, scouts are able to put action to those promises.”
Boy Scouts will be out in neighborhoods in the Centreville and Chantilly area delivering empty grocery bags with a flyer asking for food donations. They hope, as do many hungry families in the community, neighbors will fill the bags with lots of food for Western Fairfax Christian Ministries’ (WFCM’s) food pantry, and place the bags outside their front door by 9 a.m. on Saturday, Nov. 11, for pickup.
The Scouts will be collecting non-perishable items, such as canned soup, meats, vegetables, fruit, cereal, rice, oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, pasta and sauce (no glass jars), peanut butter and jelly, dried beans, canned tomatoes, etc. Scouting for Food is the largest food drive of the year for WFCM’s food pantry, as the Scouts go through the neighborhoods and bring approximately 65,000 pounds of food to WFCM on that one day.
It’s a huge effort to collect and sort the food at the Chantilly sorting site, so more than 150 youth and adult volunteers are needed to help throughout the day. Shifts are available at a local site in Chantilly beginning at 10 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. for setup and teardown, sorting, crating and transporting of food on Saturday, Nov. 11.
This volunteer event is ideal for individuals, small groups, families, service clubs, and students needing community service hours. WFCM is also looking for volunteers with trucks and strong backs to help transport 30-50 pound crates from the sorting site to the food pantry and/or local storage areas during the afternoon shifts.
For more information and to sign up, contact Annette Bosley at abosley@wfcmva.org.