GREENVILLE, Pa.-- On Sunday, August 27, first-year students at Thiel College will be holding the fifth annual community food drive in the morning to benefit Greenville’s Good Shepherd and Salvation Army food pantries.
As a service-learning project, the new students will spend their first weekend in Greenville placing bags on porches to collect food for those in need with the goal of collecting more than 3,500 pounds of non-perishable food. On Tuesday morning, August 29, the same students will go back to pick up the bags of food from community members who wish to participate. In case of rain, the bags will be picked up Wednesday. Combined, Thiel College students have collected more than 17,000 pounds of food for the community since the first collection in 2018. If they top their goal, students will have collected 20,000 pounds of food.
Food banks have reported an average increase in demand of 65% according to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and nearly 1 in 5 children in Mercer County experience food insecurity, according to FeedingAmerica.org. Rural communities make up 63% of counties in the United States and 91% of counties with the highest rates of overall food insecurity, according to data from FeedingAmerica.org.
The Good Shepherd and Salvation Army food pantries are looking for nonperishable food items such as canned foods and dry goods.