CARBONDALE - Many Southern Illinois residents found plastic bags hanging from their homes' front doors Saturday, as the region's Boy Scouts of America groups distributed the bags for their 25th annual Scouting for Food drive.

Nine units of Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Adventure Crews and Explorer Crews delivered plastic bags Saturday to homes in the Carbondale area, covering the whole city by car and foot. Trina Thomas, a Cub Master for local Cub Scout packs, governed two packs of scouts during the distribution Saturday morning in the west side of Carbondale.

"When you're 7 years old and in the second grade, you kind of feel like you can't do much to help other people," Thomas said. "This is a way that they can do that."

She said Carbondale collections usually bring in 7,000 to 9,000 food products and Southern Illinois' total collection usually amounts to around 35,000 food products, all of which will be donated to local food pantries.

Because of increases in unemployment, food pantries have seen a substantially larger number of visitors in the past couple years, and many of them depend on large food drives like BSA's to provide food through the winter, she said.

Many Cub Scout and Boy Scout groups are sponsored by churches, which hold their own collections to assist in the drive, but collections will also take place at Casey's General Stores throughout Southern Illinois. Anyone wishing to make a donation, she said, can just bring canned and other nonperishable foods to the nearest Casey's.

The point of the plastic bags is that people wishing to donate food can leave the bag on the porch Saturday, and the Scouts will be back to collect, with no additional traveling required. Each bag has instructions printed on its face.

Thomas said that last year's collections were a little under the usual, but Scouts were hoping this year's drive is a huge comeback.

"Last year was actually kind of a short year, so we're hoping to increase that a lot this year and get back up to where we usually are," she said.

thomas.barker@thesouthern.com

618-351-5805