Barrels are for food, not trash

After a busy week last week, Alex and I were back together in the office for about an hour before we hit the road on food drive pick ups yesterday. We had 7 stops, all pick ups with multiple barrels of food, and some of the locations were even keeping their barrels for more "food driving" through December! In these cases, we needed to bring enough boxes which we could use to unload the food from the barrels. Usually, loading the food into the truck is the biggest task of the trip, but this time, just packing the boxes was an ordeal in itself. You try wheeling 21 boxes on a small cart through the warehouse!


After only a few minor spills, we made it to the Bus. These boxes were used to collect the food from two area Kroger stores' barrels (see comments at the end of this post for more info), as well as food from a barrel at Showcase Cinemas in Springdale. And the food drive at Showcase is pretty cool. Every Saturday between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there is a special morning showing of various Christmas movies. Admission is free with the donation of a non-perishable food item! Every week we pick up the food collected from the previous Saturday, and this coming Saturday, Dec. 19th, is the last opportunity for the food drive promotion. They're playing "It's a Wonderful Life" so go check it out!

At the remaining stops it was all barrel pick-ups. As always, the barrels were FULL of food, which proved exciting and tiring all at the same time. I've got a few more pictures from the various food drive locations.

Here is a picture from Security National in Mason:
Total weight collected: 630 lbs!

Here is a picture from Seapine Software in Mason:
Total weight collected: 380 lbs.

Here is a picture from Atrium YMCA in Middletown:
Total weight collected: 150 lbs!

And here is a pic from Bridgeport Elementary school in Hamilton:
In between the fire drill scheduled there, we picked up 5 full barrels of food, but we don't quite know the weight yet. We imagine it was pretty high!

And lastly, I have a little beef with the shoppers at area Kroger stores, particularly the ones in Fairfield and Liberty Township. We pick up food from the barrels at the front of several Kroger locations every Monday/Tuesday. Please note that these barrels are for food, not trash. We do not appreciate your chewed gum stuck on our cans of food. Nor do we appreciate your candy wrappers, McDonald's bags, napkins, etc. among the food at the bottom of the barrels. I mean, seriously? Come on, get it together.