Scouts give food bank a boost
Hayden, rear, Braxton, left and Austin show some of the items families received at the Christmas food distribution.
ROYAL CITY — Paul and Amy Davies were looking for a way that their boys – three Scouts – could perform a community service.
The result was an Internet-based fund raising program that gave the Royal City Food Bank and its clients a big boost just before Christmas.
The Davieses have three boys. Hayden, 15 is a Boy Scout who is not far from making his Eagle rank. Austin, 13 is a Boy Scout, and Braxton, 9, is a Cub Scout.
All Hayden needs to do is select his Eagle Project so that he can start the last leg of that journey.
The food bank project was a family project. It was done to give Austin a shot at some volunteer time, which he needs to apply toward his Citizenship in the Community Badge.
“The food bank serves a lot of people this time of year,” Amy Davies said. “People aren’t working as much, and some people aren’t working at all. They need the food bank to get them by.”
The Davieses went to a service that’s been helping people raise critical funding for a myriad of causes in recent years – the Internet. They set up a GoFundMe page to promote their project.
After the public learned what the boys were doing, donations poured in to the tune of $1,600. That was more than enough to buy meat for 140 families for their Christmas meals.
The money that remained after the meat purchase was spent at Walmart, Amy said, for socks, hats and gloves for men, women and children.
“Each family got more than five pounds of fresh meat,” Amy said. The boys bought pork shoulders, which are popular this time of year especially with families that like to make tamales. But they didn’t do all of the work.
They thanked Royal City Harvest Foods for ordering, cutting and packaging the meat. Everything was ready for Dec. 22, when families came to the bank to pick up the foods needed for a full Christmas meal.
“Every single pork shoulder was handed out; We had just enough,” Amy said. “And families that needed socks, hats or gloves got those too.”
“The boys really enjoyed it at the food bank,” Amy added. “They learned a valuable lesson about giving.”
Yes they did. They came up with a plan, promoted it, and the public bought into their effort.