Troop members work to help fill food pantries, shelters for families in need
Aaron Robbins, a Life Scout from Mundelein, spent four hours Saturday packing food for the needy onto a truck in a Libertyville parking lot.
Sure, it was cold, "but it makes me feel good to help," said the Vernon Hills High School junior.
He was among scores of Cub and Boy Scouts in northeast Illinois who collected and loaded food for soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters, said Carol Bobis, senior district executive. Robbins worked packing a Northern Illinois Food Bank truck parked at Sunset Foods during the annual "Scouting for Food" drive.
Scouts from communities throughout the area, including Antioch, Buffalo Grove, Fox Lake, Grayslake, Green Oaks, Gurnee, Island Lake, Kildeer, Lake Villa, Libertyville, Long Grove, Mundelein, Round Lake Beach, Round Lake Heights, Round Lake Park, Vernon Hills and Wauconda, collected food from neighbors and delivered them to trucks in Lake Forest, Libertyville, Round Lake Beach and Park City. Older Scouts such as Robbins packed the trucks.
It's the second weekend in a row that Scouts have been working on the project. Last weekend, Scouts delivered plastic bags to front doors of homes throughout Lake County and northern Cook County. Residents were asked to put canned goods and other nonperishable food donations in the bags, which the Scouts picked up Saturday.
"Last weekend, we delivered the bags as part of an activity that we do each year," said Troop 388 member Spencer Ward, an eighth-grader at Carl Sandburg Middle School in Mundelein.
Scouting for Food Chair Paul Snow said the need is growing. "Our food drive helps feed families in need. The need has tripled, even in areas like this. There are more families headed by single parents," he said.
The food will be taken to 60 food pantries in northeast Cook County and Lake County, Snow said.
Sunset Foods stores aided the food drive by donating 120,000 specially marked "Scouting for Food" plastic grocery bags for Scouts to distribute. Food donations will be accepted at Sunset Food stores in Libertyville and Lake Forest through Monday.