Photo Provided Cub Scouts of St. Clairsville are ready for their annual food drive to collect food for the St. Clairsville Food Pantry for the holiday season. The collection is this Saturday.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — St. Clairsville residents can donate to the Cub Scouts’ annual food drive Saturday to make sure the St. Clairsville Food Pantry is stocked for the holiday season.

The Cub Scouts of St. Clairsville passed out about 1,000 door hangers to the community last weekend. For those houses that received a hanger, they can bag food to be donated and place it on their front porches this Saturday for Cub Scouts to come collect and donate to the Food Pantry of St. Clairsville.

Cub Scouts are still accepting food donations from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Fellowship Hall of Thoburn United Methodist Church at 209 E. Main St. in St. Clairsville for those who would like to donate but didn’t receive a hanger.

People can donate non perishable and canned foods, such as soups, fruits, vegetables and beans.

Den leader Aaron Pollock said Cub Scouts do an annual food drive at the start of every holiday season to make sure the food pantry is stocked. He said it’s important to collect food around this time of the year in preparation for the holidays, both Thanksgiving and Christmas, for the less fortunate residents in the local area. The St. Clairsville Food Pantry only serves the people of St. Clairsville-Richland City School District, so Pollock likes to keep the food drive collection in the city.

“That’s a big part of the scouting program is community service,” Pollock said. “Just to keep the young ones doing stuff for their community.”

Anybody who is interested in joining the scouting program can contact the Ohio River Valley Council, and they can get them in contact with a unit that’s closest to their school district.

Aaron’s wife and fellow den leader Stacy Pollock said this annual food drive gives Cub Scouts a sense of making a difference in the community.

She said this is one of the service projects Cub Scouts do because they can see the community come together as a whole and help others in need. She noted Cub Scouts do this every year before the holidays to make sure everybody has a warm meal during their celebrations.

“The children in our community are just as important and can make a change by doing something that simple,” she said. “It really does get them excited to see their hard work paying off.”