Students from Bethel Baptist School volunteered at the Caring Place, sorting cans and dividing up non-perishable food as necessary. Caring Day brought in over 13,000 non-perishable food items to be distributed to local food pantries before the Thanksgiving holiday. | Joy Haynes

The City of Hartselle and the Hartselle Beautification Association sponsored the annual Caring Day Fri., Nov. 7 with over 15 different groups participating in the non-perishable food drive.

Community members were able to donate cans by leaving them in bags near their recycling bins to be picked up or by delivering them to a local can drive.

Caring Day collected canned food from businesses, schools and individuals to distribute to the Caring Place, the First Assembly of God, the First Church of the Nazarene and the First United Methodist Church food pantries. This drive helped these food pantries stock up to help families and individuals before Thanksgiving.

This project was a community effort. City Hall, Hartselle Utilities, Joe Wheeler EMC, William Bradford Huie Public Library, Hometown Grocery, Ace Auto Body, Sparkman Civic Center, Walgreens, CVS, Dollar General Store, Kroger, all Hartselle’s banks and all Hartselle’s schools had drop-off containers for cans. Several other Hartselle businesses held their own can drives, such as ILPEA.

Numerous groups from the community not only support caring day with can drives, but some also volunteer to help and sort cans throughout the day.

Last year’s Caring Day brought in less than 10,000 cans. This year’s Caring Day efforts had over 13,000.

Virginia Alexander, director of the Caring Place, said about the same number of groups participated this year as last year.

“We had about the same number of groups contributing as normal, but I guess those groups were able to give more than before,” Alexander said. “The nice weather usually encourages more people to leave the cans by their recycling bins. I don’t really know the reason for the higher volume, but I am very grateful for the increase.”

Over 13,000 non-perishable food items were collected into bins of 200 items each during Caring Day Nov. 7. | Joy Haynes

All of these bins are filled with 200 non-perishable food items each. They were gathered by the city and sorted and counted at the Caring Place. | Joy Haynes

Mark Peck unloads a blue recycling container filled with nonperishable food for the Caring Day drive, which ended Friday. | Joy Haynes

Mark Peck unloads a blue recycling container filled with nonperishable food for the Caring Day drive, which ended Friday. | Joy Haynes