The Sanatoga office of Zuber Realty

SANATOGA PA – Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township residents won’t need to travel far to drop off donations for the “Fill The Media Lab” food pantry drive being conducted by The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper, The Sanatoga Post and The Post Publications, and many other local blog authors who are members of the paper’s Town Square community media lab.

Donors can conveniently stop at the Sanatoga village office of Zuber Realty, 2117 E. High St.

Zuber’s Donna Overholtzer on Tuesday (March 6, 2012) let the food drive campaign know her company was enthusiastic about participating. It will place a sandwich-board sign on its front lawn to let the world-as-Sanatogans-know-it be aware contributions can be made there.

The addition of Zuber’s so far brings to three the number of food drive drop-off locations in the township. The others are

• Pottsgrove High School, 1345 Kauffman Rd.; and
• Chesmont Storage, 1500 Industrial Hwy.
• There’s also an offer from Post Managing Editor Joe Zlomek: gather up a dozen or more bagged-or-boxed items for the drive, and he’ll come to you for a pick-up. Call 610-970-1492 to make arrangements for his service.

What’s the drive all about? Hungry neighbors. The poor economy is forcing more area residents to depend on local food pantries to supplement what they serve their families at mealtime. With increased demand, pantry supplies are dwindling.

Enter Mercury reporter Brandie Kessler, who figured the reach of her employer and local news websites like The Post, and the boundless energy of independent bloggers, could help solve the pantries’ problems. United, the goal is to collect and distribute 20,000 food items and 1,000 containers of laundry detergent to a lengthy list of pantries across western Montgomery County by the April 7 Easter-Passover weekend.

The drive will succeed too, because so many readers of the combined publications have chipped in to help.

Here’s the latest on food drive-related activities:

Making A Game Of It! In a stroke of creativity, youth group members at Zion’s United Church of Christ, 209 Chestnut St., Pottstown PA, and volunteers from First Baptist Church, 301 E. King St., Pottstown, made a game out of helping their community food pantry.

A van loaded in the Zion's treasure hunt

Zion’s pastor the Rev. Linda Higgins on Friday (March 2) reported in her “News From Zion’s” blog that two carloads of church youth group members went on a pre-arranged “treasure hunt” to pick-up food donations for the Pottstown Cluster of Religious Communities‘ outreach center.

Church members agreed in advance to buy items on the center’s wish list, and store them at home. Each item was assigned a point value. Youths in competing cars then went around town, calling on and picking up contributions at participating homes.  The car with the highest total points was the winner.

But the Cluster that was the true winner, Higgins wrote. Zion’s gathered 388 pounds of food and filled three shelves with personal items like diapers and toilet paper. On top of that, the pastor added, the folks at First Baptist delivered another 188 pounds of food, bringing the churches’ combined total to more than a quarter-ton of goods. Not bad for one day’s work!

• Read the Rev. Higgins’ article, titled “Manna on Main Street” and published Friday at News From Zion’s, here.

Opening The Door. The well-known and well-read area foodie blog, “Cooking Creation” by Celeste, on Tuesday (March 6) profiled the Open Door Ministry in Royersford PA as among the food drive’s recipients.

Open Door’s busy pantry (it has a good-sized corps of volunteers) serves more than 80 families across the Spring-Ford school district, Executive Director Laurie Faust told the blog. High on its clients’ wish lists are laundry supplies, toilet paper and peanut butter.

• Read the Cooking Creation article, titled “Help Struggling Food Banks / Open Door Ministry” and published Tuesday, here.

Related:

• Pottstown Mercury engages bloggers in community food drive (The Steve Buttry Diary)
• Pinterest Board: Food (Bob Garrett)
• St. Aloysius joins Fill the Media Lab food drive (The Mercury)
• Area food drive picking up speed (Positively Pottstown)
• Sanatoga’s Zuber Realty Joins The Food Pantries’ Fight (Sanatoga Post)
• Communities Coming Together To Give Back (So Much To Do, So Little Time)
• POVERTY: Food for Thought (Agitator In Chief)
• They’ll Give You the Food on Your Back (Digital Notebook)
• Fill the Media Lab Food Drive (Yoga Wisdom For Every Day)
• Help Struggling Food Banks / Open Door Ministry (Cooking Creation)
• S-H-A-R-E (Roots Of Revitalization)
• Manna on Main Street (News From Zion’s)
• Help Out The North Coventry Food Pantry (52 Ways To Wake Up A Week)
• Chloe and Belle Added TWO More Dropoff Sites (Tails Of 2 Dogs)
• Got Goodies For The Food Pantries? Drop ‘Em Off Here (Sanatoga Post)
• Food collection challenge takes off (The Mercury)
• Belle and Chloe Added New Donation Dropoff Locations! (Tails Of 2 Dogs)
• Belle and Chloe NEED Your Help! (Tails Of 2 Dogs)
• Positively Pottstown joins “Fill the Media Lab” food drive (Positively Pottstown)
• Updated Dropoff List for Fill Our Media Lab (Tails Of 2 Dogs)
• Pinterest Board: Fill The Media Lab (The Mercury)
• Good Thing, Small Package: Food Drive Gets $50 Start (Sanatoga Post)
• ‘Fill the Media Lab:’ A local effort to fight hunger (The Mercury)
• Posts, Mercury, Bloggers Unite To Fight Local Hunger (Sanatoga Post)
• Join our challenge to ‘fill the Media Lab’ and help local food pantries (The Mercury)

Photos from Zuber Realty, Zion’s UCC