The Knights of Columbus Food and Fund Drive at the Blacksburg Kroger on South Main Street had a goal of collecting 1000 pounds of food and $500 by Saturday evening.
As the event came to an end, Nelson Carey, a knight for 42 years, was packing another 30 pound of groceries into boxes and thanking people that were donating items and dropping cash into the bucket.
By 5:30 p.m., the group was well over its food goal at about 1300 pounds, all of it benefitting Blacksburg’s Interfaith Food pantry.
“We collected a lot of canned food, non-perishables and spaghetti sauce,” Carey said.
Collecting food and money from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., the knights manned the table in two-hour shifts.
Nationally, in this springtime food and fund-raising effort, the knights have collected $8 million and 14.7 million pounds, that includes the contributions like the one in Blacksburg to support local food pantries, food banks and soup kitchens, Carey explained.
“We don’t like young kids going hungry,” Tim Leake, a knight of seven years, said.
Carey and Leake are members of the Knights of Columbus Brothers of Father Edward Fox Council #6747, which hosts multiple food drives in the area, including a drive for the Montgomery County Emergency Assistance Program’s food pantry, and on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the organization hosts “a dinner for people who need a hot meal,” they said.
For more information about the Knights of Columbus visit www.kofcknights.org.
