By Gary Lloyd
The Trussville Area Chamber of Commerce will hold its community-wide food drive kickoff will be Saturday at First Methodist Church of Trussville.
The drive-through kickoff will be from 10 a.m. to noon in the church’s parking lot.
The fourth annual Love Your Neighbor food drive will be held in conjunction with Valentine’s Day. Collection points will be manned at various locations and times during the week of Feb. 10.
“We try to make it easy for people in our ‘drive-through world’ to donate, so on that Saturday, people can actually drive into the parking lot, drop off their nonperishable items to volunteers, and then drive on out,” said chamber Executive Director Diane Poole. “They don’t even have to get out of their cars.”
Celebrity volunteers include former University of Alabama and Clay-Chalkville defensive end Quinton Dial and Fox 6 News anchor Janet Hall. They plan to be on hand at the kickoff to greet contributors.
The food drive benefits the Trussville Ecumenical Assistive Ministry, a nonprofit that assists those in the immediate Trussville area who are in need of food, clothing and other necessities during difficult financial times.
“We wanted to use the Valentine’s Day theme of love to remind people to ‘love their neighbor’ and to help those in need,” said T.E.A.M. volunteer Louise Jensen. “Many people think of helping others during the holidays but they sometimes forget that some people need help all during the year. We hope this food drive will bring an awareness to donate these items all year long.”
There were 250 bags of food collected at last year’s kickoff. Local schools contributed more than 1,400 bags of food last year.
Specific items that are needed include personal hygiene items, cooking oil, flour, corn meal, sugar, canned meat and fish, dried beans, cereal, breakfast food, peanut butter, jelly, saltines, and macaroni and cheese. T.E.A.M.’s other immediate needs include volunteers and a larger building in which to house and distribute its donated items.
T.E.A.M. is located at 88 Cedar Lane in Trussville. Its hours of operation are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from noon to 2 p.m. and Thursday from 5 p.m.to 7 p.m. For more information, call 205-661-5039.
Drop-off locations include participating T.E.A.M
. churches, the Trussville Area Chamber of Commerce, Trussville fire stations and T.E.A.M. All locations will accept donations Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during that week. Most of the participating churches will also conduct drives Feb. 10.
Contact Gary Lloyd at news@trussvilletribune.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.