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Rachel Riley, of the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board, said normally the group’s food drive collects canned goods at drop-off locations.
“This year, due to COVID-19, we wanted to keep everyone safe,” Riley explained. “So we figured the best thing to do was to make it exclusively, solely online. So, we’re not collecting physical canned goods, we’re just collecting monetary donations.”
Riley said the goal is 15,000 pounds of food which will be given to the Montco Anti-Hunger Network, which runs 34 food pantries across the county.
She said the funds raised in the online campaign will be used to buy canned goods and non-perishable items for those pantries.
“There are more than 80,000 people who are food insecure in Montgomery County, Pa. alone,” Riley said. “So we want to continue to help support those people and the system that feeds them.”
She said the greatest needs identified by the network are in Norristown and Lansdale.
Riley said the campaign got an early start because of COVID-19.
“About $5,000 we figure we’ll need to raise in order to get to that 15,000-pound-mark,” she said. “And, we have already raised almost a couple thousand dollars from the spring and so therefore like 3-or-4,000 pounds of food.”
Riley says the food drive was launched and inspired by the 2015 visit of Pope Francis to the region.
He stayed at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Lower Merion in Montgomery County, using it as his base of operations during the two days he was here.
If you want to help the campaign, visit their website.