Scouts hope to break record with door-to-door food drive

Daniela Mohor

Friday, Nov. 16, 2001 | 8:44 a.m.

About 7,500 Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts will collect nonperishable food donations for Las Vegas' needy families Saturday.

As part of their annual Scouting for Food effort, the scouts hung 360,000 yellow grocery bags on doorknobs in Clark County neighborhoods earlier this week, scout officials said.

They plan to retrieve the bags from those doorsteps Saturday, filled with canned food left by the residents.

Eighty-five percent of the items collected will go to the Salvation Army and the rest to Catholic Charities. Both groups will use the donation to feed low-income families and homeless people in the next few months.

Last year the scouts gathered 124 tons of food, setting a record in the local Scouting for Food history. That food stocked the Salvation Army pantry for three months.

But the organization hopes to do even better this year, to meet the greater need.

"We hope to exceed that number ... just because we know there is such a great need this year," said Mike Miller, special projects director for the Boulder Dam Area Boy Scout Council.

At the Salvation Army the number of families asking for assistance has increased by 50 percent since the Sept. 11 attacks, said Sumner Dodge, the organization's food project coordinator.

"Our food warehouse is very very low right now," Dodge said. "Luckily there is Scouting for Food this weekend."

Catholic Charities officials, on the other hand, say they don't have enough products yet to fill Thanksgiving food boxes for the more than 800 families who signed up for help this year. The food drive will help, but the charity will still need turkeys for the baskets, the charity said.

Since it was launched in 1988, Scouting for Food has collected more than 2.1 million food items for the Salvation Army. It has allowed the charity to provide more than 105,000 emergency food boxes to needy people.