Scouting for a Harvest of Help

Bundled head to toe on a rainy Saturday, Cub Scout Tyler Rowe helped unload dozens of heavy plastic bags bulging with cans of food that had been collected in nearby areas of Mission Viejo.

“It’s been fun,” said Tyler, 7, a little out of breath. “I collected these with my good friend, Jordan.”

Tyler was among an estimated 10,000 Scouts who were ferried to local neighborhoods throughout the county by den mothers and Scoutmasters in minivans, SUVs and station wagons so the youngsters could collect tons of donated goods.

The goal for this year’s Food Plus program is 200,000 pounds each of food and clothing.

The goods will go to Goodwill Industries and Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, the county’s largest food bank, for immediate distribution to needy families.

The annual drive provides one-third of the goods that Second Harvest distributes, said Jerry Creekpaum, the food bank’s operations manager. Once the food is dropped off, it will be parceled out “by next week” to some of the 360 nonprofit agencies helping homeless and needy families, Creekpaum said.

The Scouting drive, now in its 14th year, has become a tradition involving hundreds of troops, Scout leaders, volunteers and families, who donate their time to transport Scouts to neighborhoods and collection sites.

“Through the years, it’s become more and more a community effort,” said John M. Schuetz, a Scouting district chairman for South County’s Saddleback Council.

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It took months to organize the council’s drive. The council has 4,500 Scouts and is the largest in the county, if not the state. “Scouting and Little League are very large out here,” Schuetz said.

Last year at the collection site in Mission Viejo, scouts piled up 9 tons of food and 6 tons of clothes.

Efforts like that require more than 40 volunteers to help unload vehicles and load three truck trailers. Volunteers from the local Rotary Club were on hand this year, as were truck drivers from the National Guard.

For the Scouts, it was just fun.

Dan Nankani and Kellen Gunner, both 15, and Alex Jones, 12, spent the day as members of a human chain. When the collection vehicles drove up to unload, the three would hop on a trailer and toss bags of clothing to one another and finally into the large trailers.

“I’m the tosser,” said Jones, who added, ‘Watch this.” He fired another sack into the trailer. It hit the wall with a thud, narrowly missing the head of Nankani, who yelped: “Hey!”

Old jackets, women’s dresses, children’s shoes and T-shirts, everything got tossed into the trailer, including two teddy bears still with price tags. “These are expensive. They cost $45 each,” Nankani said.

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During a brief downpour, Explorer Lance Larson, 18, of Laguna Beach misplaced a jacket and got soaked grabbing bags from vehicles.

But he didn’t care. With his hands freezing and hair dripping, he said: “My rain jacket somehow got donated. I’ve been trying to find it in the trailer.”

Meanwhile, when Scouts arrived at the residence of Mark Kaylor, 31, they were greeted with dozens of bags on the porch.

Kaylor, a product manager for ConAgra Foods, said he and his wife buy in bulk and had a lot of canned goods for the drive.

“It was good to see the kids get excited,” Kaylor said. “And it’s Boy Scouts, so they’re a good organization and they’re obviously giving it to something good, so we were happy to participate.”

For Schuetz, the drive serves as an event that keeps the scouts busy while teaching them a civics lesson.

“If you watch the scouts,” he said, “you’ll see they’re having a good time and they’re doing a service to the community. What better way of teaching them community service? It will be something they’ll carry with them as adults.”