KPHO.com Boy Scouts Pay It Forward With Food Drive

POSTED: 10:54 pm MST February 3, 2011

UPDATED: 7:44 pm MST February 4, 2011

PHOENIX -- Boy Scouts from around the state are celebrating their 101st anniversary by sponsoring a food drive on Saturday.

Troops from Metro Phoenix and Tucson will be delivering empty grocery store bags to neighborhoods and encouraging people to fill them up with canned goods.

Bashas' Supermarkets donated thousands of plastic bags to the Scouts to support this year's food drive.

The Boy Scouts will be setting up at Bashas' locations around the Valley to collect food donations.

Kristy Nied, director of communications for Bashas' Family of Stores said, "We're proud to partner with the Boy Scouts on their drive, as it does so much to help our community."

The volunteers will be delivering the food to St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance and needy families throughout the state.

Donations can also be accepted at the St. Mary's Del E. Webb Distribution center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

St. Mary's President and CEO Terry Shannon said, "The rising demand combined with lower donations in the first few months of the year causes food bank resources to be depleted faster."

The goal for the "Scouting for Food" drive is to collect an all-time record of 300,000 pounds of food.