By Marvin G. Cortner
Editor

The largest one-day food drive in the United States – Scouting for Food – this year will be Saturday, Nov. 13.

In Central Florida, Cub Scouts packs, Boy Scout troops, Explorer posts and Venturing crews – with the help of adult Scouting leaders and volunteers – will distribute plastic bags (hanging them on doorknobs) on Saturday, Nov. 6, in advance of the food drive.

One week later, Kissimmee area Scouts will collect the bags with the donated food – again from doorknobs – and take them to the Osceola County Council on Aging’s Barney E. Veal Center, 700 Generation Point, Kissimmee, for sorting and stacking in the council’s pantry. St. Cloud area Scouts will take their collected food to the Winn Dixie store, 3318 Canoe Creek Road, with those staples destined for the St. Cloud Community Food Pantry, 901 Missouri Ave.

In Central Florida, corporate sponsors of the food drive include Bright House Networks, Winn-Dixie and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. Last year, Scouts in the seven counties that comprise the Central Florida Council, Boy Scouts of America, collected 615,000 pounds of food, which provided more than 400,000 meals for needy families in the region.

Steve Salisbury, Osceola District co-chairman for the food drive in the Kissimmee area this year and an assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 826, said that as an organization, the Boy Scouts teach youth the value of helping others and giving back to their communities.

“By collecting food for people in need, Scouts are fulfilling the Scout oath and slogan of ‘doing a good turn daily’ and ‘helping other people,’” Salisbury said.

Art Polnasek is the food drive co-chairman for the St. Cloud area; he also is Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 192.

“We typically have 1,000 people helping out (Scouts, their parents and other volunteers) from the St. Cloud area,” Polnasek, who has headed up the St. Cloud area drive for 11 years, said. “The food that is collected in St. Cloud stays in St. Cloud.”

Polnasek also said that food donations seem to go up during bad economic times, something local communities can be proud of.

There is a bit of a rivalry between the two areas, and last year the Kissimmee area donated about 300 pounds more food than did their counterparts in St. Cloud, the first time that happened in many years, if ever, since local food drives began.

Polnasek suggests that residents donate food from their hurricane supplies each year – because the season is pretty much finished by food drive time – so that these items don’t become outdated.

If residents are not going to be at home on Nov. 13, they also can drop off food at the Winn-Dixie store or at the Council on Aging. Residents who intend to donate to the drive are reminded that only canned and non-perishable food can be used and that outdated food cannot be put into pantries.

In advance of the food drive, Scout units will use local maps to organize by neighborhoods distribution of the plastic food bags, which will bear the Winn-Dixie grocery store logo.

Last year, Kissimmee area Boy Scouts collected more than 32,000 pounds of shelf-staple food for the Council on Aging's food pantry, council officials said, but within a few short months, it was gone, as an average of 400 food boxes (feeding four people for four days) were distributed to low-income residents each month.

"As the person who first greets our clients, I truly see desperation in the eyes of residents who come to us for help," Gladys Wilson, receptionist for the Council on Aging, said. "In many cases, we are their last hope and it is so heartening to know we can make a difference in whether they go to bed hungry or not.”

Robert Dent, marketing and development director for the council, said that currently the food pantry is half full going into the holiday season, which is “typically the most challenging time of the year.”

“Without the Scout food drive, we could not keep up with the needs of the community," Dent said. “So many families have limited resources for food and with school age-children home more frequently with days off from classes, families are under more stress to refill their own pantries.”

Scouting for Food began as a Scout’s service project in St. Louis in 1985 and was adopted by the Boy Scouts of America national organization in 1988.