Community drive to help collect food for the summer

Seated in a circle of about 10 international students Monday at Kirkwood Hall was Hoosier Hills Food Bank Volunteer Coordinator Kim Kanney. Kanney talked to the group about volunteering at the upcoming Live from Bloomington Community Food Drive for the food bank, an organization that distributes food to the hungry.\n“The response from the group was great,” Kanney said after the session was over. “The international community in IU has always been supportive of the food drive.”\nThe food drive corresponds with the Live from Bloomington Club Night on April 17-18. Proceeds from the band showcase, as well as the compilation album of all the performing bands, will go to the food bank.\nThe food drive will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Nearly 12,000 brown paper bags designated for food collection have been inserted and distributed through The Herald-Times newspaper. Residents can fill the bags with non-perishable food items and then leave the brown bag, or any unwanted bag of food, outside their homes on the porch, steps or driveway to be collected, according to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank Web site.\nOn Saturday, about 60 volunteers will comb the town of Bloomington and collect bags of food left outside people’s homes, and another 40 volunteers will sort the food collected, Kanney said.\n“We will have a large map of Bloomington on that day,” she said. “The 60 volunteers will be divided into groups and each group will have a zone to cover.”\nJordan Bleckner, IU junior and director of Union Board’s Live from Bloomington committee, said that about 25 percent of what the Hoosier Hills Food Bank receives each year comes from the proceeds of this music festival.\nNow in its 23rd year, the tradition of organizing the local music festival Live from Bloomington has been to achieve two goals: to raise money and food to benefit the Hoosier Hills Food Bank, and to promote and foster the local music scene. \n“Through the festival, we hope that musicians can have a medium to showcase local music,” Bleckner said, “while at the same time aid the people in the community who need help.”\nThe purpose of this food drive is to collect enough food to last the food bank for the whole summer, Kanney said.\n“Around the holidays, in November and December, we get a lot of food from food drives,” she said. “But then spring comes and people stop giving, so our storage gets exhausted.”\nBecause Little 500 is on the same day as the food drive, volunteers were hard to find, Kanney said.\n“Every year we get a lot of support,” she said. “In the past, we received a lot of support from sororities and fraternities, but this year there is less interest because of Little 500.”\nNicole O’ Neal, an IU sophomore and supporter of Live from Bloomington, said the fact that the event has been around 23 years just goes to show that the community cares.\n“It’s great that this tradition has passed down from so long,” she said. “It’s a great way for IU students to give back to the community; it’s a great way to see people come together to celebrate a good cause.”\nBloomington resident Russ Clinton, who has volunteered with the food bank for two years, said he would be helping at the food drive Saturday. \n“An event that can create excitement and bring awareness to the food bank and its goals will be very helpful,” he said about the drive. “It is a wonderful opportunity to help.”