The statewide Feed Utah food drive was a great success for efforts of the Bountiful Food Pantry. A total of 206,899 pounds of food was collected at six locations set up throughout Davis County on March 15.

At the Bountiful Food Pantry, bins of donated food were taken inside to the warehouse to help stock shelves for spring.

 Rebekah Anderson, executive director of the Bountiful Food Pantry, said this year’s total exceeded the 185,000 pounds collected last year.

“This food drive is always so humbling,” she said. “Seeing the number of people who give up their Saturday morning to deliver food donated by their neighbors is inspiring.”

“This year we opened new drop-off locations in Clinton, Clearfield and Kaysville,” she added. “The volunteers and community members in those cities were amazing. They were happy, hard working, and despite the cold, they were excited to help. For the Bountiful Food Pantry, this year's food drive marked the beginning of many new friendships across Davis County, and we can't wait to work with these people again.” 

Kaysville and Clinton locations saw the most traffic. In Kaysville, the collection bins were full within the first hour of the scheduled drop off time of 9 to 11 a.m. Officials had arranged for semi-trucks to help haul the bins, known as Gaylords, to a warehouse location as well as to Bountiful. The Pantry in Bountiful is always heavily visited, with donations still coming in as late at 12:30 p.m.

“This food drive is critical to keeping our inventories high entering the spring season,” Anderson said. “We had hundreds of volunteers and we’re so appreciative of their time and efforts for the Pantry.”

It’s estimated that more than 414,000 Utahns face hunger, including 1 in 6 children. Anderson said that more than three-quarters of those who receive groceries only need help six times or less before their lives normalize and they no longer need to come to the pantry.