By Mary O’KEEFE

Last weekend, Scouts for Food collected hundreds of bags of groceries donated by local neighbors. 

On Nov. 9 Scout troops dropped off empty bags to local residents asking people to fill the bags up with non-perishable items. Then on Nov. 16 the Scouts picked up the bags filled with donations. 

There were five locations around the area where donations were being gathered and all were related to the specific food bank recipients. For example, at Highlands Church in the 4400 block of La Crescenta Avenue bags were being collected for Sue’s Garden food bank, an outreach of the church. 

Troop 319 members had already picked up their bags in the Dunsmore Park area and were helping Troop 288 with pickup in the area of Sue’s Garden. 

Matthew Paige of Troop 319, and the committee chair for Scouting for Food, and his son Marcus picked up an extra route to help pickup bags in the area of Sue’s Garden. They had picked up an extra 42 bags through that effort. 

Marcus has a long history as a Scout, having started his scouting career as a Cub Scout in first grade. He is now a senior in high school.