Santa Claus Is Coming to Glide

For 26 years, the Boy Scout Troop in Glide has sponsored a Holiday Food Basket Program.  Hundreds of hungry people receive a huge load of food and their kids get presents.  We've volunteered with the program since 1999.  Every year it gets bigger and better organized.  In 2000 84 households were served. This year it was 189. It's a heart-warming event that we throw ourselves into wholeheartedly. 

Some team members collect boxes throughout the year. Planning starts in earnest with an October team kick-off meeting. The scoutmaster devotes himself to soliciting donations - food and money.  And he is VERY good at that job--this year he collected about $20,000, including 3 grants.  The Glide food pantry gathers the names of the needy.  Long Shadows becomes the technology center. We generate the public service announcements, print the solicitation and thank you letters, create the recipient database, generate the delivery tickets and box labels.  On top of that, the two of us oversee the actual process of filling the food boxes.

Thanksgiving week, a giving-tree is set up in a Glide restaurant.  Tags for the needy children and seniors are hung there.  People are asked to pick up a tag or two and purchase gifts.  If any names are left on the tree, someone goes out and purchases gifts with donated funds.  Hundreds of presents are wrapped by volunteers.

Boy Scouts deliver the filled boxes the Saturday before Christmas.  That means Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are busy days for us.  Here's a quick look at what happens.

We and another couple label all the boxes -- 376 this year.	The labeled empty boxes are assembled and ready Thursday night.
Donated canned goods are delivered to the HS cafeteria. Food drives from Glide to Diamond Lake collect about 3 tons of non-perishable food.	Friday morning the scouts, Glide Honor Society, and community volunteers sort the canned goods and fill the boxes.
FAQ: Are plums a fruit or a vegetable? Does tomato soup go with soups or tomatoes? What do I do with enchilada sauce?	After sorting is finished, teams distribute one commodity at a time to every household -- there are two boxes per family. This team is doing tuna.
In addition to the donated canned goods, the scoutmaster purchases cases of stuff with the donated money.  Some of these items include: cranberry sauce, soup, fruit cocktail, canned peaches, peanut butter, jelly, pancake mix, syrup, macaroni and cheese, instant oatmeal, chili, cooking oil, stuffing mix, tuna, ketchup, mayo, mustard, onions, potatoes, carrots, oranges, apples, bananas, toilet paper, tooth brushes, and tooth paste.  Whew! And for appropriate households there's baby food and diapers.
In recent years SOOOOO many items are donated that the recipients wouldn't be able to store it all. Extra donations are boxed up and delivered to the food pantry. We always get hundreds of packages of ramen noodle soup.	The filled boxes, ready and waiting to be delivered. (There were 40 more in the hallway.)
Saturday morning is wild and crazy.  Two boxes per household are waiting to be loaded into cars and trucks.  A third box will be added with perishable items: eggs, milk, margarine, frozen orange juice, cheese, bread, frozen pumpkin pie, ham, and a turkey or chicken depending upon the size of the family.  We head up the team creating that 3rd box, and this year Cheryl, Virginia and Paul helped. There are no pictures of this process -- box orders come fast and furious and we have no time for a camera.
Saturday morning, scouts opening the cases of pumpkin pies.	The scoutmaster (guy in the red jacket) gives his usual pep talk, safety instructions, and benediction before the chaos begins.
Boy Scout Troop 112 and leaders The recipients love to see them at their doorstep
Scouts haul out the boxes.	A box of canned goods is pretty darn heavy.
Sunday parents come to the food pantry to pick up presents for their kids. We have a couple of teenaged girls we've "adopted" the last couple years. The woman in charge of signups give them to us because their gift request is always: books!!! You know us and books!

Not quite done--thank you letters will go out in January. But for now we sit back, contemplate another year's project gone well, and smile.