By SUSAN TEBBEN
Glasgow Daily Times
GLASGOW —
The United Way of Southern Kentucky is asking for donations at local grocery stores this Friday and Saturday.
At all Houchens Markets, IGAs, Save-A-Lots, Krogers, Food Lions and Walmarts in Barren, Allen, Logan, Simpson and Warren counties, volunteers will be passing out lists of suggested items to customers as they enter stores. They will also be in each county to help sort and package donated items.
This weekend’s drive is part of the regionwide food drive, “Feed the Need,” that has been running since Feb. 15.
“We know coming off the holidays food banks get very depleted and it’s a result of the need out there,” said Daniel Moran, director of resource development for United Way.
Food banks are still seeing a high volume of people and still have lots of new customers as the economy continues to be sluggish and available jobs remain rare.
In addition to the United Way drives, companies and schools across the region have been conducting food drives. Greenwood High School’s band student parents organized a food drive from Feb. 15 to 26. Moran said these local drives have collected twice as much food as the general drives United Way does, perhaps because of the word of mouth and connection to the community.
In Barren County, the food drives look to everyone from the Rotary Club to the schools and churches that have drives help keep them going until the major area food drive, “To the Brim,” which runs Aug. 23-29, according to Dr. Bharat Mody, a volunteer at the Community Relief Fund and the Salvation Army.
“This [United Way food drive] will definitely help us until we get to that point,” Mody said, adding that while the drives have helped, the food banks are still a bit low on supplies and could always use more.
All the donations will benefit food banks in the county in which they were collected, such as the Community Relief Fund, Salvation Army, Barren River Area Safe Space, Community Action of Southern Kentucky, Good Samaritan of Logan and Simpson counties and the International Center.
“It’s an easy way to help out those in need in our communities and since we’ll be at grocery stores you can just go grocery shopping and then drop off donations at the same place,” Moran said.
The fliers that volunteers will be handing out recommend non-perishable items for donation, and Moran said anything, such as boxes of pasta, that can be made into a full meal, are what the food banks need.
“Feed the Need” was created in 2009 because of an increased need for resources in the community. In that year, volunteers collected 43,520 items.
United Way is also always looking for volunteers, Moran said, to pass out fliers and collect the donations.
“The main thing is to get people out to help,” Moran said.
Volunteers will be at area grocery stores Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
