Caddo Council’s annual Scouting for Food ends today
The Caddo Area Council’s Scouting for Food and Books food drive concludes today. Scouts distributed sacks for the food drive throughout the council’s 10-county area over the past two weeks. Scouts will begin picking the food up around 9 a.m. this morning in most locations. People who would like to donate to the drive are asked to place non-perishable food items in the bag on their front porch in plain view.
“We want canned goods and dried goods that are not expired,” said Anthony Escobar, Caddo Area Council scout executive. “Last year we got a lot of stuff that was expired. We want people to know this food is being distributed to families in need that are hungry. We can’t distribute anything that’s expired or anything that’s homemade or in jars. It has to be commercially produced canned or
dried goods.”
The council’s goal for the food drive is to collect 45,000 pounds of food. Last year, 38,000 pounds of food was collected.
Food collected in this area will be given to Harvest Regional Food Bank. Food collected in other areas of the council will go to a local food bank.
“This is the time of the year families are making the decision between the heating bill and putting food on the table or having a nice Christmas for their kids while trying to provide groceries for the month,” said Camille Wrinkle, Harvest Regional Food Bank executive director. “A lot of the people we serve are what we call working poor. They’re working one or maybe two jobs or even more but still finding it hard to make ends meet for their family. This food will go into our warehouse and will be available for our agencies we serve throughout Southwest Arkansas and Northeast Texas. We serve an area that has more 55,000 food insecure individuals with Arkansas being number two for childhood hunger and Texas being number six.”
The food drive not only benefits the hungry but benefits the scouts who make it happen.
“The three fundamental tenants of scouting are duty to god, duty to country and service to others. If you’re a scout, you pray to our God, pledge allegiance to national flag and talk about and participate in activities that give back to local community,” Escobar said. “Scouting is about building boys and girls to grow up to be good citizens. … We don’t recognize how many children in our community are hungry and go to bed hungry. Oftentimes these kids primary meals come from schools but what about dinner and weekends. Harvest Regional Food Bank does an outstanding job distributing food to hungry. We are proud to be one of those sources of food. Hopefully they’ll be kids going to bed at night who are not hungry because of our scouts and the support of the community.”
Books will be given to the Literacy Council of Bowie & Miller Counties. Books should be in good condition age-appropriate for children or teenagers.
“When it comes to the books, think about kids. There are a lot of kids who need books, elementary to high school age, boy or girl,” Escobar said. “They don’t have to be new books but they should be in really good condition.”
People who didn’t receive a sack or whose donation wasn’t picked up can drop food off at the scout office, located at 24 Lynwood, Texarkana, Texas or at Harvest Regional Food Bank, 3120 E. 19th St., Texarkana, Ark. or at their local food bank.