United Way Collecting Food For Needy At Great Lakes Mall Saturday

The is collecting donations of nonperishable foods and paper items for its annual Feed Lake County drive from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the former Ethan Allen store in the .

During Feed Lake County, more than 60 local businesses and organizations run food drives for United Way of Lake County, who then distributes all the food to more than 52 food pantries across the county.

Saturday's Community Wide Food Drop-Off is an opportunity for individuals who may not be having food drive at their job or for those who are retired to still donate food to Feed Lake County. If businesses or organizations are wrapping up their food drives this week, they can also drop off their collections on Saturday.

Last year, Feed Lake County raised 45,000 pounds of food and $60,000, which is used to purchase food throughout the year to distribute to food pantries.

So far in 2012, more than 17,000 pounds of food has been raised including . The majority of food drives occur in early April.

The local chapter hopes to raise $60,000 and collect 60,000 pounds of food before the Feed Lake County food drive ends April 19.

The most requested donations are soups, canned fruits and vegetables, tuna fish and other canned meats, macaroni and other boxed meals, beef stew, ravioli and other canned ready meals, peanut butter and jelly, pasta and sauce, cereals and breakfast foods and toilet tissue and other personal care items.

Monetary donations are also welcome. Checks can be made payable to: United Way of Lake County by designating Feed Lake County in the memo section.

All food must be dropped off from the outside of the mall as there is no entrance from the inside. The old Ethan Allen building is located on the west side of the mall facing Plaza Boulevard

For more information, call Gayle Sikula at 440-639-1082 or email her at GSikula@uwlc.org.