Plans for Christmas Food Drive begin

TRIAD of Union Parish is again working with Brookshires of Farmerville this year to kick off the annual “Spirit of Christmas Food Drive” in Union Parish.

 “Our goal through this drive,” explained TRIAD Director Susan Edwards, “is to help as many of our lowest income senior citizens as we possibly can during the holiday season. Through this effort, we hope that the holiday season will be made a little brighter for many of them, especially during this difficult economic time.”

The drive will begin at the Farmerville Brookshires Store on November 19 when store officials set up a designated bin inside the front of the store. Customers will be able to purchase non-perishable food items and donate them for the drive by placing them into the bin.

Also, students throughout the parish will collect food for the drive – either by class or organization and top groups will be rewarded with a pizza party.

TRIAD representatives will pick up the food at the store and take it to a central storage area where it will be packed in self-closing boxes provided by Brookshires Grocery Company. Boxes will be filled Monday through Wednesday, December 15-17, and distributed along with Brookshires’ roasting hens shortly thereafter.

As in years past, TRIAD is in need of all the help it can get to make this year’s drive again a success. Two co-chairpersons are needed – one to coordinate the pickup of food donations and the second person to oversee the packaging and delivering.

Our Farmerville store director, Bill Bragg, will be given the names and phone numbers of TRIAD’s director and assistant director along with those of the co-chairpersons so that we will be notified when the collection bin in the store is full. At this time, food will be picked up by TRIAD representatives and taken to the food storage area.

Each box (1 per family) will contain a sampling of various food items. A hen, donated by Brookshires, will be included along with canned fruit and juice, green beans, English peas, corn, miscellaneous beans and/or vegetables, canned meats and packaged soups, flour, corn meal, sugar, cake mix and dessert item(s), etc.

The TRIAD Office will announce the location of the food storage area in the near future. To volunteer in the effort or to obtain more information, please call Donna Miller at TRIAD, located at 804 Marion Hwy., Farmerville; at 368-0469.