An estimated 8,000 Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Venture Scouts recently traveled through Central Virginia neighborhoods distributing grocery bags door-to-door, the first stage of the annual “Scouting for Food” effort, now in its 25th year. The public is asked to fill the bags with non-perishable food items and place them in front of their houses on Saturday, Nov. 3 when Scouts will again canvass neighborhoods to gather the food donations.

Those participating should place their filled bags outside their front doors by 9:30 a.m. Residents who didn’t receive a Scouting for Food bag may make a food donation at any Martin’s location.

“Scouting for Food is FeedMore’s largest community food drive, accounting for 25 percent of the total food received all year from food drives,” said Jeff Baldwin, media and community relations manager for FeedMore.

Scouting for Food is a community service project conducted by the Heart Of Virginia Council of the Boy Scouts of America to benefit FeedMore and the Scouts anticipate collecting over 300,000 pounds of food for those in need throughout Central Virginia. In addition to the thousands of individual contributions, Martin’s and Capital One are supporting Scouting for Food with the cost of the bags; approximately 325,000 are delivered by Scouts each year.

Financial contributions can also be made by visiting http://www.feedmore.org