Second Harvest hoping to ‘Fill the Van’ this weekend at St. Joseph stores

By NewsPress Now

Community members who are grocery shopping this weekend won’t have to go far to make a difference and donate to Second Harvest Community Food Bank.

Second Harvest is collecting nonperishable items for its “Fill the Van” food drive, with a focus on pasta noodles and sauce, boxed dinners, breakfast items, snacks, rice, mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, and canned protein.

These donations will go toward local Campus Cupboards and helping feed those in need in the area.

“We have what we call the “Backpack Buddy” program, which helps elementary school students,” said Mackenzie Osborn, Second Harvest’s communications coordinator. “But then whenever kids get into middle and high school, we know that they still may need that assistance, so we created Campus Cupboards.”

Campus Cupboards are pantries located inside schools in the area. Students, or members of their family, can go to the cupboards at the schools and pick up whatever donated foods they will need.

Volunteers will be accepting donations outside of several stores:

Brother’s Market, 402. E. Price Ave., Savannah, Missouri

Cosentino’s Price Chopper, 2219 N. Belt Highway, St. Joseph, Missouri

Hy-Vee, 201 N. Belt Highway, St. Joseph, Missouri

Sam’s Club, 5201 N. Belt Highway, St. Joseph, Missouri

Second Harvest will be at the stores from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday.