The event, which began as a national Scouts volunteer project in 1985, seeks to collect canned goods and money from people door-to-door. Many probably noticed the red sticky note on their doors.

On Saturday starting at 9 a.m., the scouts will go to every home in New Ulm to collect boxes of canned goods left out for them. From there, the food is sent to the New Ulm Emergency Food Shelf (NUEFS).

Scoutmaster Dan Kotten said this project falls in line with what the Boy Scouts are all about.

“Our scout slogan is ‘do a good turn daily,’ he said. “That’s what we’re basing it off of. Trying to do a good turn and collect food for all the food shelves.”

Scouts and volunteers unload bags from a car and put them on a cart. Cub Scouts get the word out by putting red notes on doors, and Boy Scouts go around with their families and collect donations.

The work is divided between scouting teams. The Cub Scouts are the ones who put the stickers on doors a week before collection, and the Boy Scouts collect everything. To canvas the whole town in a day, the work is split up. Kotten said in total, around 50 scouting families are involved.

“We do routes by streets,” Kotten said. “Then we’ll have a scout parent drive the vehicle down and the scouts get in and out of the vehicle and collect the bags of food.”

Kotten said on average the project receives around 1,500 to 2,000 pounds of food a year for the food shelf. The record for most food received was set in 2011 when they got 4,300 pounds of food. Kotten said he hopes those who can give will do so for those in need.

“If people are falling on hard times with the price of food the way it is right now, they can go down and pick up what they need for their families,” he said. “If you’re doing well you can give a little bit more canned food. If you buy something on sale and you decide you don’t want it and it’s still within date, you can donate it.”

Kotten said it’s always an option to donate money or food to the food shelf at any time.

NUEFS Executive Director Brad Kirk said in his years with the organization, Scouting for Food has been a great help.

“It’s a big impact because during this time of year, our donations are down a little bit and this gives us a boost,” he said. “The donations right now for food and cash are down, so this gives us a big impact on our ability to give to the community.”

In addition to June and July, the first four months of the year are consistently the slowest for the NUEFS. Events like Scouting for Food and the Minnesota FoodShare March Campaign, which is a statewide effort to keep every food shelf statewide operational, aid during this period.

Kirk said a silver lining is that New Ulm has not been hit as hard by food insecurity as many other places were, especially during COVID.

“It’s actually declined,” he said. “Ever since COVID, the government had a lot of extra benefits for those who needed it. A lot of places said their numbers skyrocketed during covid and ours actually plummeted. The numbers are starting to come back but not as much as before COVID. We were at around 150 families a month, and now we’re at 120 families.”

For more information about Scouting for Food, visit https://www.twinvalleybsa.org/food/. For more info about the New Ulm Area Food Shelf, visit https://newulmfoodshelf.com/.