COUNTYWIDE : Boy Scouts Collect 50,000 Food Items

Boy Scouts countywide collected more than 50,000 items of food for local charities during their annual collection drive, a Boy Scout official said Monday.

Scouring neighborhoods from Simi Valley to Ventura, thousands of Scouts collected an unofficial total of 52,447 items during the Scouting-for-Food-Good-Turn Project Saturday, said Leilani Bueltmann, an executive of the Ventura County Council Boy Scouts of America.

All the food was given to food banks in the areas where it was collected, Bueltmann said.

Keeping the project local helped the Scouts to understand that there are needy people everywhere, even in their own communities, Bueltmann said.

The Scouts ranged from 7-year-old Cubs to 17-year-old Explorers.

Ten members of Camarillo’s Boy Scout Troop 260 who canvassed Camarillo neighborhoods were told by one resident that he had no cans to give because he had not worked in a year, said assistant Scout master Mike Reynolds. “Those kids walked away from his house amazed,” Reynolds said. “I think that really brought it a bit closer to home for some of these kids.”

Reynolds’ son Clint, 14, a Rio Mesa High School freshman, said he rarely thought about hunger before his first food drive last year. “I thought about it a lot more after I went out and collected cans,” he said. The 7,000 cans collected in Camarillo, double last year’s total, went to a food bank at St. Mary Magdalena Church. Jessica Bessette, the church’s food bank director, said she was overwhelmed by the volume of goods turned in.

“We plan to use the food turned in by the Scouts in our emergency food supplies,” Bessette said. “This should last us through the winter.”