MLK Day Donations to Aid Armstrong Community Action

by Jonathan Weaver

More than two dozen volunteers collected money and non-perishable food donations yesterday rather than taking a “day off.”

Starting at 8AM, a total of about 30 volunteers - 20 at the Indiana Giant Eagle and 11 inside the Kittanning Shop `n Save - spent the day gathering food and monetary donations for local food banks.

Most of the volunteers – including local Girl Scouts (under the direction of Indiana/Armstrong Membership Manager Michele Whitman) and students of at least two Indiana University of Pennsylvania groups – worked in shifts, but OSM/VISTA Cassy Allen and other Pennsylvania Mountain Service Corps members volunteered the entire eight hours.

“From about 1PM on, it got busier,” Allen said. “Everyone was a big help today.”

Food and monetary donations will be given to the Armstrong County and Indiana County food banks (both supervised by respective Community Action agencies)

Allen, from Crookside (Indiana County) has been AmeriCorps OSM/VISTA for the Crooked Creek Watershed Association and Evergreen Conservancy since November after graduating from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Ecology, Conservation and Environment in 2013.

Throughout the day, Allen drove back-and-forth between the two food drive sites: Kittanning Shop ‘n Save in Franklin Village Mall and at the Indiana Giant Eagle, on Ben Franklin Road. She said shoppers donated a “total, 170 items and $258” between both locations during the eight-hour food drive.

“We did pretty good despite it being cold,” Allen said. “It was odd – at Giant Eagle, we got more items donated, but in Kittanning, we had more money donated.”

Even though it was the seventh-annual food drive organized by Crooked Creek Watershed, it was the first year the Indiana supermarket was a donating site, after the Kittanning Foodland closed a few months ago.

“It took quite-a-bit to find another store we could set up at – and Giant Eagle has a policy where you can set up there, but it has to be outside, which was a little rough with the cold but we pulled it off,” Allen said.

In January 2014, OSM/VISTA Brooke Esarey, of Blairsville, reported that the 10 volunteers collected 189 food items and more than $354 from shoppers during “Martin Luther King, Jr. Day” at the two Kittanning supermarkets.

In 2013, volunteers collected two dozen bags of food items and about $200 in cash between the two Kittanning supermarkets.

In addition to the volunteers, Allen thanked all donors.