Scouting for FISH? Food Drive Bag Drop Starts This Week

Keep an eye on your front porch: and Cub Scouts are distributing hundreds of bags and flyers – tucking them into doors, stoops, and yes, porches, around the Sonoma Valley – as part of their annual Scouting for Food drive.

The bags are dropped off with a note, asking residents to fill them with food, which will help fill a ‘Christmas Basket’ made by (which stands for Friends in Sonoma Helping.)

“We’ve been doing it for thirty years,” said Brian Weiner, who’s been helping with the event since his oldest son, now 40-years-old, was a scout.

The scouts will collect the, hopefully full, bags on Saturday, Nov. 12.

“We get about 10 percent [of the bags] back,” said Weiner. “People forget – but we get quite a bit of food and canned goods.”

If you received a bag fill it with non-perishable food – F.I.S.H staff suggest canned and dry goods, such as pasta, rice and beans – and place it in a visible location on your front porch or doorstep.

“It’s just really so helpful for F.I.S.H,” said Louise Bielfe, a volunteer with the organization. The group usually makes more than 500 baskets for needy families each holiday season, which they distribute on Dec. 17.

Uniformed scouts will pick up the bags between 9am and 2 pm, and help sort the goods by type into the F.I.S.H. baskets.

Didn’t receive a bag? You’re not alone; there are only so many scouts. If you’d like to donate, drop off your goods at the , at the corner of Highway 12 and Siesta Way, on Nov. 12. Volunteers will staff the area between 9 am and 2 pm.

Interested in joining Boy Scouting in the Sonoma Valley? Contact the Redwood Empire Boy Scout Council at 546-8137.

F.I.S.H. is still looking for volunteers to help sort through the donations and assemble baskets from Dec. 12 – 16. To sign up, call 996-0111.