By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service “Can” vass Food Drive matched last year’s haul of food and other necessities despite being short-handed.
The drive coordinated by the Brown Bag Food Project, could have use three times the crew of volunteers to cover all the neighborhoods in the city. Still, Amy Jo Holland, Brown Bag founder, said those people reached were generous. Very few reached said no.
The drive gather between 60-70 boxes of food. By late afternoon those goods, non-perishable food, hygiene items and paper goods were being boxed up to be distributed by the six organizations that will share the bounty. In addition to Brown Bag, the other organizations benefitting are: First United Methodist Church, St. Mark’s Lutheran, Broken Chains, St. Thomas More, and BG Christian Food Pantry. Each will receive 10 to 12 boxes. That should be enough for a couple months, she said.
In divvying up items, Holland said, attention is paid to the kind of service provided. Broken Chains, she said, works with the homeless, so it received all the trial size hygiene items and single serving and ready to eat food items. Homeless folks don’t have can openers, she noted. Larger, bulk foods went to St. Mark’s and First United Methodist because they serve meals.
Holland said 60 volunteers showed up to work. Some stayed on for more shifts than they had signed up for.
Next year, she said, Brown Bag may extend the drive, which ran on Saturday and Sunday, to Monday. That way they could better coordinate with Bowling Green State University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. As it is some students are going over the Brown Bag’s facility on Monday to help sort items gathered in the food drive.
