By Dillon England

Every year, Troop 282 in association with Fairmount Christian Church helps to gather and distribute food for the holidays. It’s a process of multiple weeks, and various stages. Many gather to help families in need. The whole food drive every year is always a success. The amount of food that is donated is always appreciated. It’s truly amazing to see how many households throughout the community are willing to assist us in our cause.

We always start by mass-delivering fliers with lists of items that can be donated.  This doesn’t take too long, maybe part of day. It spreads the opportunity to help the community to everyone that wishes to. The next week, we go and collect the food from the people that donate. This too is a hopeful task as it is great to go through neighborhoods and see all of those who give what they might think is only a small donation, but in reality goes toward a greater cause. We transport all of this food back to wherever it may be stored that year. The numbers on the food items definitely adds up.

After the collection is all said and done, the food has to be sorted. We organize all of the items based on what kind of item they are. Many help behind the scenes organizing all of the food and packing the food boxes. While it’s important to have a lot of boys to do some heavy-lifting, it’s also vital to have dedicated adults to keep everything organized and on-task.

All in all the food drive helps many families within the community. Our efforts help to feed families not only during the holidays, but in the times after as well. Our contact at Fairmount and a leader of Troop 282, Mr. McLeod, says that he truly appreciates the help of everyone with this caring task. This group effort is always a spectacular show of how when you work together, even a small role can make a tremendous difference in the bigger picture.