ST. LOUIS (Nov. 1, 2012)undefinedMore than 30,000 Scouts and thousands of additional volunteers and parents will be collecting food items during the 28th annual “Scouting for Food” drive in November. Scouts from throughout the Greater St. Louis Area Council, Boy Scouts of America will distribute more than one million bags on Saturday, Nov. 10, and return the following Saturday, Nov. 17, to collect the bags filled with canned goods. Volunteers organized coverage of the food drive by producing maps that divide 27 counties in eastern Missouri and 10 in southern Illinois into more than a thousand areas for Scout units. More than 500 food pantries throughout the region rely on Scouting for Food and the generosity of the community to help stock their shelves before the holiday season and cold winter months. Scouting for Food donations provide up to a four-month supply for some pantries.

Scouts who collect food in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County will take donations to one of 46 fire stations where it is sorted and boxed. (Food collected outside of the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County is taken directly to food pantries in those communities.)

“Our leaders, Scouts and their parents are preparing to work together on an important service projectundefinedfeeding the hungry throughout our region,” said Ron Green, Scout Executive and Chief Executive Officer of the Greater St. Louis Area Council. “We are providing assistance to those in need, but this drive also teaches young people the value of helping others.”

For the ninth consecutive year, Sunset Transportation, Inc., will transport the food from the fire stations to the St. Louis Area Foodbank. Sunset Transportation will move 55 truckloads of food in cooperation with dozens of truck drivers who donate their time, use their own trucks, and pay for their own fuel.

The Scouts collected more than 45 million food items during the first 27 years of the drive.