Palouse Cares food drive set Dec. 3

The Palouse Cares food drive and auction are Dec. 3. The 11th annual event will bring together volunteers to collect food for local food pantries.

“What we do is we go to each town and get volunteers to go door-to-door to collect food,” said Rick Minard, who organizes the event. “In the smaller towns, it's a little bit more of a challenge. We lean on church groups and people in the community we have known for a long time.”

Minard said all the food raised in the communities will stay within that community.

The drive will be in several Whitman County and Latah County communities, starting at 9 a.m., unless otherwise noted.

Volunteers should meet at the following locations:

Albion: Albion Food Bank

Colfax: Colfax Food Pantry

Colton-Uniontown: Colton Post Office

Deary/Bovill: Old Deary Fire Station at noon

Genesee: Genesee Food Center

Juliaetta/Kendrick: J-K Food Bank

Moscow: Real Life at the Eastside Marketplace

Palouse: McLeod's Palouse Market

Potlach: City hall

Pullman: Zeppoz

Rosalia: Rosalia Food Pantry

Troy: Umpqua Bank

Minard said the drives could use volunteers.

“We would take any of the volunteers from any of the small towns we could get,” he said.

Anyone wanting to volunteer can contact Minard at 208-310-1745. He said he is also seeking volunteers from WSU and the U of I. WSU students can sign up at cougsync.wsu.edu, and U of I students can volunteer at vandalsync.orgsync.edu.

Last year, volunteers were able to help raise 40,000 pounds of food for Palouse Cares to give to the local food pantries.

“It's grown into such a wonderful event, and sadly it's grown into an event that's needed,” said Minard. “We take a lot of pressure on this, and we try so hard to do a good job. It makes us sick to our stomachs to know there's kids without food. Our goal is to make sure that no kid goes hungry on the Palouse.”

In addition to the food drives in several communities, Palouse Cares will have two fundraising auctions the same day. These auctions will include live and silent auctions as well as barbecue and baked goods, music and fundraising games.

The auction in Pullman will be at Zeppoz at 1 p.m., and the auction in Moscow will be at the Eastside Marketplace at 12 p.m. Doors open at 11 a.m. for both events.

More information at palousecares.org and facebook.com/palousecares.