Scouts do good deed for food banks

PANAMA CITY — Area Boy Scouts worked together Saturday to help their communities with an annual project going back 25 years.

Scouting for Food, started in 1988, is a national food drive conducted by the Boy Scouts of America that has collected millions of food items over the years to be donated to local food banks and charities. The Lake Sands District, including Scout units from Bay, Gulf and Washington counties, collected 2,436 pounds of food to be distributed between Catholic Charities, Center of Hope, and the Gulf Beach Presbyterian Church food pantry.

“It means we’re going to be able to feed a lot of people,” said Karen Ferguson, an elder at Gulf Beach Baptist Church, who called the church’s food pantry her “mission.” The pantry distributes three days of meals to beach residents who can show identification. Residents can receive food for each member of their household as well and can receive aid three times a year. Last year, Ferguson said the pantry helped 2,317 people and served about 23,000 meals.

“That’s all donations,” Ferguson said. “We don’t have any other income. It’s all donations of food and money.”

Kevin Hall, chairman for the Lake Sands District Scouting for Food, said Scouts started the drive Jan. 25, by distributing plastic grocery bags to houses in their counties. Each bag contained a flyer explaining that Scouts would be collecting non-perishable food items for local area food banks Saturday, and distributing the items at St. John’s Catholic Church to the food banks.

“We wanted to fulfill that Scout motto about doing a good deed daily,” Hall said.

Hall said over 50 percent of Scout units in his district participated, with the Scouts themselves logging a total of 220 hours of service collecting and organizing food.

“The nice thing about this is it’s after Christmas, so people kind of — not that they forget, but Christmas becomes a time of giving and everybody seems to bring out their best in generosity during that time, so it’s nice to be able to get it (donations) in late January, early February,” said Diane Williams, regional director for Catholic Charities, which offers emergency services such as the food pantry in addition to long-term help such as budgeting and other life skills classes and transition housing.

John Dye of Center of Hope, which is affiliated with St. Andrew Baptist Church and 11 other area churches, also expressed appreciation for the food drive.

“Being a Scout myself many years ago, I’ve always had quite a strong feeling for what they do and they just continue to do that and continue to do community work that’s just way over and beyond what you would expect or imagine. And we’re very thankful for what they’ve done and for including us in their drive,” he said.

Isaac Hall, who currently holds the rank of Tenderfoot, but plans to move up all the way to Eagle Scout, contributed his time distributing and collecting bags and staying at St. John’s to help with distribution.

“I like doing this kind of stuff because it helps out the community and it can help out people in need,” he said.