Scouting for Food underway
This year, the Greater St. Louis Council, including the Big Muddy and Egyptian Districts in Southern Illinois, announced plans to return to the traditional Scouting for Food bags out/bag in used in the past for the food collection.
Due to Covid, last year’s, the program was revised to a food drop-off only system to protect the scouts and communities.
As in the past, all food donations remain in the local food pantries for community assistance.
The Greater St. Louis Council issued a news release about the 2021 Scouting for Food event. Highlights from the news release follow:
2021 Good Turn
This is the Greater St. Louis Area Council’s 36th annual Scouting for Food Good Turn, and it continues to be the largest single-day canned food drive in the United States.
During its 35-year history, Scouts have collected more than 52 million cans of food.
The 2021 campaign began Saturday, Nov. 13. Approximately 35,000 Scouts in the region were planning to go door-to-door to distribute custom-made plastic grocery bags.
On Saturday, Nov. 20, Scouts plan to return to neighborhoods to collect the bags filled with canned goods.
The timing of the campaign coincides with the spirit of giving and appreciation associated with the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday season, the Greater St. Louis Council noted.
Scouting for Food is an area-wide food drive conducted to support agencies that provide food to those in need.
The Greater St. Louis Area Council conducts this food drive in 63 counties across Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois and Central Illinois. More than 35,000 Scouts and adult Scouters collect food.
On a district-by-district basis, packs, troops, teams, crews and posts are assigned geographic areas in which they distribute bags and, a week later, return to collect bags filled with canned goods.
Scouting for Food Points of Interest
In the area served by Scouting for Food, it is estimated that one out of 10 people will go without food tomorrow. That’s an estimated 420,000 people who will go without food on a regular basis.
Of that number, it is estimated that 140,000 are children who will go to bed hungry.
Scouting for Food, which was started in 1985 by the Greater St. Louis Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, has since grown into the nation’s most successful single-day food drive.
Last year, the Scouts collected 1.9 million cans of food for area food pantries.
The food drive has collected more than 50 million cans of food since its inception.
For the distribution and collecting of Scouting for Food bags, the Greater St. Louis Area Council reported that all procedures have been created and approved from a panel of physicians to adapt to the changes brought about by the pandemic.
To donate virtually, text “SCOUTFOOD” to 91999. A $1 donation will provide for four meals of essential food.
Money which is donated purchases food items at a central food bank and flows back to the area food bank associated with the donor’s Zip Code.