Over 80 tons of food collected for local food pantries!

80.3 tons! That is how much was collected for the County Wide Food Drive during the week of October 8-13, 2012. That is over 160,000 pounds! WOW! What an amazingly generous community we live in. A variety of items were collected for 50 local food pantries ranging from cereal to rice, shampoo to laundry soap. Take a look at just a few of the highlights:

• One house left 6 bags full of donated items on their porch for pick-up.
• The Sharpe Collection collected 3,227 pounds of food in an in-house competition (the winning team got a paid half-day off!)
• A congregation passed out 75 bags one Sunday and 83 bags were returned the next week full of donated food & personal care items.
• Some volunteers were doing door-to-door pick-up when they saw a man trying to fix his gutter in the pouring rain. The volunteers helped him fix it and the man donated $50 to the food drive.
• The Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) held a building-wide competition and collected over 700 items to donate.
• One woman left a bag of items to donate on her porch. She said, "The wonderful volunteers who picked up the bag from my porch called out 'Bless you!'. So kind of them - they were the ones blessing others!"

Thank you to all who participated as volunteers, donors, or sponsors. You guys are rockstars!

If you're looking for more ways to get involved this holiday season, check out the Access Holiday Giving Network, which matches individuals or groups directly to Kent County families who are in need of holiday food. Last year over 7,000 families signed up to receive a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal and this year the need will be just as great. Would you consider helping make the holidays brighter for a family in need?