Saturday March 25, 2006

Each year Scouts and Scouters from Iaoapogh Mountains District provide invaluable assistance to two local Social Organization dedicated to assisting those in need. This is the seventeen consecutive year that scouts have collected food and related items to help our neighbors in need.

The doors to the Center for Food Action site in Mahwah opened at 8:00 am and Scouters arrived to pickup boxes for the satellite locations in Oakland, Midland Park and Ho Ho kus. The Social Services Site opened at 9:00 AM. All the boxes were delivered to the center and set up to go before everyone arrived. Bob T did a yeoman's job in arranging the room for action. It worked equally as well previous years.

We again returned to the Bergen County Law and Public Safety Institute and the Ridgewood Train Station again this year. With the damp cold weather we were happy to be inside again this year

Scouting with a mission.

Early Volunteers Setting up for the onslaught

Around 10:00 am the first groups started to arrive with their bags of food and the action became fast and furious. There was just so much food and the time just passed so quickly, that you just didn't notice.

As in previous years there were many hands to lighten the load. At points in time there were in excess of sixty people at the site, emptying bags, moving food from table to table, boxing, stacking , loading trucks and then off to the warehouse to pile it in the storage bins. Volunteers came from Scouting, local schools, and local churches to assist us in this event. This was truly a community event.

There were shopping carts in the parking lot to assist in transporting the bags of food from cars to the collection site. We had learned how to use the space efficiently last year, which made organization easier. The location had easy access to the loading dock, so moving the boxes from the collection site to the warehouse remained simpler and no one had to shuttle through a hallway to get to the trucks.

With the satellite sites in Ho Ho kus, Midland Park, Wyckoff and Oakland, we were able to handle the transportation to the storage facilities more efficiently. The food came in boxed and in vehicles so we could transport to the storage site with out unloading and reloading. Thank you for all the help

We closed shop at three PM a record! In 2001 we had to come back on Palm Sunday for an additional six hours to complete the task, my weary back appreciates all the helping hands. Yes we were the recipient of all the Millennium food, and I am not complaining, more is better

Early Arrivals

The food was sorted in to various categories to assist the center in stocking their shelves. The categories that we separate and boxed were:

Sorting

The prior week, March 18, 2006 many of our units distributed flyer and bags to raise the consciousness of the community which provided much needed advertising of the campaign. Without this distribution the amount of food would have been greatly diminished. Local newspapers provided press coverage of the event and we are grateful for this valuable service. Iaoapogh Mountains District provided there support in the form of boxes, packaging supplies and people for this we are truly appreciative. We would like to thank each and every family in Iaoapogh Mountains District for their overwhelming generosity. Finally we would like to thank all the units, parents and boys, who gave freely their time and effort to complete this good turn and their commitment to performing a good turn daily!

We are grateful to the staff at the Bergen County Law and Public Safety Institute for making the site available, and there support during the day. We would especially like to thank Gary Grochowski, again from Troop 50 Mahwah for providing a large part of the boy power we employed at the Mahwah collection site. Of course we have to thank Jim James, Bev Sullivan and the volunteers from the Center for Food Action for their invaluable assistance. We are grateful for the assistance from Our Lady of Mount Carmel's Confirmation class for providing many helping hands We would like to thank everyone personally but the overwhelming support makes that impractical, but you should all have a warm feeling from your accomplishments. Again we extend our thanks to the Communities of Allendale, Franklin Lakes, Glen Rock, Ho-Ho-Kus, Mahwah, Midland Park, Oakland, Ramsey, Ridgewood, Upper Saddle River, Waldwick, and Wyckoff.. Without your continued support we could not have accomplished our goal to provide assistance to members of our communities in need!

Here are some statistics for the event:

• 40,000 preprinted bags were provided (Wakefern Foods)
• 20,00 Flyers to go along with the bags (Iaoapogh Mountains District)
• 1,200 boxes were provided (Iaoapogh Mountains District)
• 779 Bags were collected and delivered to Social Services in Ridgewood
• All 1200 boxes were filled and delivered to the CFA Pantry
• 3 cases of packaging tape was provided (Iaoapogh Mountains District)
• 1200 boxes of food were collected and placed in storage Center for Food Action.
• I loss track of the participating Unit, it looked like everyone was involved
• 25,648 People were served by the center in 2004
• Approximately 13 tons of food and related items were collected

Jim Jones from the Center for Food Action assisting a scout loading the food for transport to the warehouse