The East Pottawattamie County Farm Bureau hosted a grocery cart race in Avoca. It's a fun way to collect donations for local food pantries during National Ag Week.
- "We know the need that our food pantries have. So, during National Ag Week, we really saw that as an opportunity to honor and serve our community," said Megan Hansen, farm bureau board member.
- "People are proud and they don't want to have to use a food pantry but sometimes it's a necessity just to get through a month," said Joy Krohn, a food pantry volunteer in Walnut.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Competition for a good cause. I'm your southwest Iowa neighborhood reporter, Katrina Markel at Avoca Foodland where the East Pottawattamie County Farm Bureau hosted grocery cart races as a way to come up with donations for local food pantries.
Teams of two have ten minutes to get as close to $150 in groceries as possible. There are extra points for finding items produced and packaged locally.
"Do we have pork yet?"
In honor of Ag Week, the local Farm Bureau is donating Wednesday's grocery haul to food pantries in Walnut and Avoca.
Megan Hansen is a Farm Bureau board member.
"We know the need that our food pantries have. So, during National Ag Week, we really saw that as an opportunity to honor and serve our community," said Hansen.
Stacie Hansen and Janet Buman, Shelby County State Bank: "Our Bank likes to do a lot of stuff in the community and it just kind of aligns with what we do anyway ... We want to see how the other teams are going to do because we're feeling pretty good about how we did."
I even got in on the competition with KSOM radio host, Austin West.
West: "It's got soybean in it. I say it counts."
We got surprisingly close to the $150 goal!
More importantly, it helped rural Iowa food pantries meet a need.
Joy Krohn says it's hard for people the first time they get food from a pantry.
"People are proud and they don't want to have to use a food pantry but sometimes it's a necessity just to get through a month," said Krohn.
There's another grocery cart race on Friday morning in Oakland. And, of course, the local food pantries can take donations of cash or goods at any time.
A volunteer from the Avoca pantry says she's seen a need for toilet paper for the first time this year.
