By: Mac McLeod

For this year’s food drive for Fairmount Food Pantry the Boy Scouts and their families collected food for seven weeks, putting out approximately 10,000 bags and collecting over 35,000 items. This is the sixth year Troop 282 has had a food drive for the pantry, and each year it gets bigger.

This food will support the food pantry for almost the entire year. We serve Northwest Independence. The boundaries are the city limits to the West, Sterling on the East, the Missouri River on the North, and 23rd Street on the South. This food drive not only helps people in need, but it will also free up funds to do other things like upgrade the windows in the pantry house and put siding on all three buildings.

Along with the Food Drive, Troop 282 also came to the Fairmount Christian Church to help assemble 325 holiday food boxes for needy families. The food boxes consisted of the following items. A 12 lb. turkey, a 5 lb. ham, or a baking hen. Brown and service rolls, butter, mac & cheese, canned vegetables, green beans, corn, canned soup, ramen noodle soup, instant potatoes, canned fruit, hot chocolate, cookies and candy bars. These boxes are truly for those less fortunate during Christmas.

The Fairmount Pantry would like to thank to Boy Scout Troop 282 and everyone that contributed to this great community service project. This project could not be done with out everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to help.

Thank you so much,
Mac McLeod
Chrm Food Pantry

(See more pictures in the Troop 282 Photo Collection of the 2010 Food Drive.)