Scouts Troop In to Get Food Drive Started

“I’m going to get 80 pounds of them at least,” Cub Scout Bryan Davis said with excitement Saturday, sounding as if he were getting ready for a Scout fishing trip.

The 9-year-old Inglewood boy’s gear wasn’t fishing poles, though, but an armload of white plastic sacks that he and 250,000 other Southern California Scouts are due to distribute in neighborhoods this week in hopes of catching their limit: 1 million pounds of canned peanut butter, chili, soup, vegetables, meats and fruit to help feed the homeless and hungry.

Davis and 250 representatives of Scout troops attended a pep rally Saturday at the Los Angeles Area Council headquarters downtown to kick off the national “Scouting for Food” campaign to be held this week throughout the country. More than 4 million Scouts nationwide are expected to go door to door collecting food.

Radio personality Roger Barkley, who is volunteer chairman of the local effort, told the cheering Scouts, “When you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this year, you’ll feel satisfied because you have helped the hungry.”

Scouts will distribute the plastic food bags this weekend.