Second Harvest "12 Days of Christmas" Food Drive

Blake Haynes from Second Harvest Community Food Bank joins us to discuss the Second Harvest "12 Days of Christmas" food drive to help struggling students and families during the holidays

C1 the 12 days of christmas looks a little different at second harvest community food bank.

Blake haynes is joining us who does communications at second harvest.

Thanks for being with us, blake.

Thanks for having us.

Tell us about the 12 days of christmas.

It's different than the song of course.

You're doing something every day.

You're asking people to give a specific item of food.

Can you tell a lot bit about that?

Yes, what we're doing is collecting food drive boxes from individuals who are willing to participate in the community.

You can donate those at second harvest or we have have barrel locations.

If you're at the store, you can drop them off there.

They are at the brother's in savanna and the green hills in the north end of town.

There's 12 items on the list.

You've got things canned vegetables, pasta sauces.

Jelly, granola bars.

Nonperishable items that are easy to eat and easy to make for children and things like that.

The cool thing about this basically the food drive, the 12 days of christmas is these can actually be built into a queue given out as our campus cup board.

High schools, middle schools and the colleges in the area have campus covered programs that are able to give these food to the students who are able to eat them themselves and bring them home to the family.

It's a great way to get back to the community.

All of the items are relatively inexpensive.

It's just a great opportunity to give back and help those in need within your community.

It really does help every student able to bring home a box and be there.

I know being at the dollar tree earlier today, it's very interesting how much food you can get for a dollar.

You can get so many boxes.

It's very easy to donate.

I think it's a great idea and i love how groups are coming together and saying let's do the 12 days of christmas.

It's really working out well.

I hope you bring in a ton of food.

Yeah.

As of right now, we're right around a thousand pound mark.

Half the month right now.

So we're hoping to double that.

Even more than that.

So the more the merrier.

It's a great program given back to helping children, the students and their family.

Like i said, donate here at second harvest or find a barrel in the grocery store.

Blake is there people this christmas who are having a hard time and they don't maybe plan ahead and they find themselves christmas eve, christmas day without food.

Is there a place you direct them to go to get a hot meal?

So in you're looking for food assistance.

I encourage you we have a partner agencies.

It will have partner agencies within our 19 counties, we have a pantry taking place wednesday december 23rd on sycamore street in st.

Joseph.

If you are looking for options before christmas and the holidays, make sure that you're going out and providing for your family.

Blake, thanks for all you do.

I know you work very hard and you're