Central Illinois went door-to-door Sunday for the 27th annual foodshare can-a-thon collection in an effort to restock the local pantries with food.
Can-a-thon co-chair Pepper Bauer says, "Usually about this time of year the pantries are really starting to get lower on their food from the holidays. A lot of people think of pantries during the holiday seasons and they have holiday food drives but when it starts to get spring and summer those shelves get pretty bare."
Bauer says this year they are extremely bare because the number of people going to food pantries are up 25%.
The University United Methodist Church in Peoria had over 400 volunteers collecting canned food, including a group of Bradley students who aren't even from the area.
Volunteer Lindsay Brough says, "It's important to me because I may just go to school here but the people in this town deserve just as much as my hometown."
One local Peorian expressed how wonderful the program is.
Food donator Jesse Flores says, "Well, we're fortunate that we have food and these kids are taking their time to do this so I think that people should be very responsive to something like that."
Peoria was not the only community collecting food, surrounding areas including Bartonville, Creve Couer, Pekin, Bloomington, East Peoria, Chillicothe, Glasford, Lake Camelot, Lacon, and Morton were out collecting as well.
Because there aren't enough volunteers to cover every neighborhood if no one came to your house you can still make a donation at drop box locations at Krogers, Curves, Peoria Fire stations, and Subways through March 19th.
The co-chair of the can-a-thon says they hope to collect 90-thousand pounds of food.
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