Food Drive

Last week our church participated in a community-wide service project to restock the local food banks. The week prior on scout night Bentley helped roll up fliers and prepare them to be distributed. He even figured out a way to streamline the process and shared it with the other teams. I like the way that boy thinks.

This past Thursday for scouting the three older children and Opa went out with other ward members and put fliers on the door knobs of homes in our ward boundary. The twins weren't technically invited because they aren't eight yet, but we knew any extra pairs of strong, fast legs would be useful so they tagged along. The children had a great time.

On Friday I asked the children if they wanted to go shopping to buy some food to donate to the drive. Jake and Viva wanted to buy some food to donate with their own money, so they went upstairs and raided their piggy banks. They decided to donate $10 each was a significant portion of their savings. Great-grandma donated some funds, too. 

Kara dropped us off at Walmart while she did another shopping errand. Viva was a quick shopper and made her mind up quickly about what she wanted to buy. (I had checked the food bank website before we went so we had some idea of what foods the bank most wanted and we zeroed in on those foods.) Jake had to be prodded to start adding food to the cart before we finished shopping. 

I chose the self-check out lane so Jake and Viva could scan their food. It was fun until one of Viva's quarters incapacited the machine and we had to wait five minutes for the clerk with the keys to come and open the door and then reshut it. Fortunately Kara had rejoined us by then and she took the little ones off to the car. 

On Saturday Mark and Matt went out with other ward members to collect the food left on doorsteps. The boys were at karate, so they didn't go along to help. This was a great community service activity for our family.