Scouting for Food is looking for the community’s help collecting food for the foodshelves in Mower, Freeborn and Faribault counties.

Cub and Boy scouts have placed a special plastic food bag at area doors. Fill the bag with non-perishable and canned food goods. People should place the filled bag outside their front door by 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 19. Scouts will then pick up the bags and deliver it to a local foodshelf.

If you didn’t receive a bag from the Scouts, that’s OK, any plastic grocery bag will work fine.

The bags were sponsored by United Way, WOW Zone, AgStar Financial Services, CHS, and MN 93 Country (Radio Mankato). The Mower County Shopper will deliver them to houses around Austin the week before Scouting for Food. The bags have instructions for donating the food on them.

Scouting for Food is a “Good Turn” project of the Boys Scouts of America. This is the 41st year scouts have collected food locally. Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts collect food bags donated by the households in our communities, and deliver those bags to the local foodshelves.

About 500 volunteers will collect an estimated 30,000 pounds of food in Mower, Freeborn and Faribault counties.

Scouting for Food aims to provide the youth members of the Boy Scouts of America an opportunity to better understand the problems of hunger in Minnesota, and to realize that they can have an impact and help with community concerns.

Participating youth and adults will receive a 2016 Scouting for Food patch.

The Southern Trails District of the Boy Scouts of America serves Freeborn, Mower, and part of Faribault Counties. The Southern Trails District serves over 700 youth ages 6-20, with 200 adult volunteers, in 38 Cub Scout Packs, Boy Scout Troops, Venturing Crews, and Explorer Posts.

It is the mission of the Boy Scouts of America to serve others by helping to install values in young people and, in other ways, to prepare them to make ethical choices over their lifetime in achieving their full potential.