THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 18, 1994 TAG: 9411170188
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
IT TAKES dedication to chair a food drive that involves a mountain of food, hundreds of volunteers, a bunch of corporate and business sponsors, a small fleet of tractor trailers and a quartet of United Way agencies.
That's the kind of dedication that comes when you get pulled into something in which your children are involved, like sports or band or Scouting.
It's also the kind of dedication Fairfield resident Chris Walke has in his volunteer job as the Tidewater Council Scouting for Food and Clothing chair.
The only thing is, the youngest of Chris and Jan Walke's five children has been out of Scouting for seven years now. For the soft-spoken customer service administrator of the city's public utilities department, dedication is a hard habit to break.
``I just like the idea of setting up a program so that boys and girls have the opportunity to go out and collect food, (one) that has a direct return to the community that supports them,'' he explained.
Like most fathers, Walke became active in Scouting when his sons were going through the ranks from Cubs to, in the case of one son, Eagle.
Unlike a lot of fathers, he's still around to help the Scouts long after the last son has left the troop.
He chaired the Princess Anne Virginia Beach (PAVAB) district's annual food drive from 1987 to 1992. For the past two years he's chaired the combined drive held by the Girl Scout Council of the Colonial Coast and the Tidewater Council, Boy Scouts of America.
Working together the two agencies will be collecting sacks of non-perishable food left on home doorsteps this Saturday morning. This year the group will also accept clothes.
The food will go directly to the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and Albemarle Manna in North Carolina. Clothes will go to Goodwill Industries.
Somewhere in the middle of the operation will be Chris Walke, supervising the army of volunteers who make sure that the items picked up from front porches by the Scouts get to the collection points where the food items will be sorted and loaded into tractor-trailers donated by Sandler Foods to be taken directly to the Foodbank.
``The food we collect can be in the hands of those who need it by Monday,'' Walke said, obviously proud of Scouting's part in the efficient grassroots operation.
Last year the drive added an impressive 100,000 pounds of food to the Foodbank's larders.
``We don't have any goal for this year,'' Walke said. ``We just want to get out in the neighborhood and do the best we can.''
As for the newly added clothing component, Walke has no idea how successful that part of the drive will be. He's just grateful that Goodwill will have staff and volunteers on hand to help sort the incoming donations.
And what if the donations exceed the volunteers' ability to handle them?
``We'll just call for more trailers,'' Walke said with a nod toward the grocery sacks he and his wife had already packed. ``It would be an embarrassment of riches we'd really enjoy.'' MEMO: Bags of non-perishable food, preferably canned goods, and good usable
clothing should be left on front door steps by 8 a.m. Saturday for
pickup. Refrigerated, frozen or home canned items cannot be accepted.
While canned goods are preferred, items in sturdy, undamaged packages
are also welcome.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JO-ANN CLEGG
Fairfield residents Chris and Jan Walke get ready for the Scouting
for Food drive.
by CNB