Article Photos

At most food-related drive-throughs, the food goes into the car.

Northwest Savings Bank turned that around during Wednesday's drive-through food drive on Liberty Street.

Contributors could just pull up to the donation zone in the block between the Northwest bank and the headquarters building, roll down their windows and hand out a bag of food or some cash.

The drive is the local portion of the Second Harvest Food Bank's annual drive. Last year, the drive provided food for more than 52,000 people in 11 counties in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Second Harvest's Samantha Lynch expects to have more families interested in food this year. "I'm sure that number will increase this year with the economy," she said.

Locally, the First Church of the Nazarene Food Pantry, the St. Joseph Food Pantry, the Sheffield Area Food Pantry, and the Youngsville Ministerium Food Pantry at Evangelical United Methodist Church receive food from Second Harvest.

Contributions were brisk Wednesday morning.

By 12:30 p.m., the drive had collected 2,314 pounds of food, including 37 turkeys, and $2,408, according to Lynch. "It's going great."

By the time the food drive ended, according to co-chair Jennie Minich of Northwest Savings, 3,739 pounds of food - including 46 turkeys - had been collected. Monetary donations totaled $4,781.

Employees at the Warren Post Office contributed ten 20-pound turkeys to the effort.

The drive has been held for five years in Warren. In 2005, the Warren portion of the drive raised 887 pounds of food and $401. In 2006, the totals were up to 1,553 pounds and $948. The monetary donations have risen consistently, with $1,649 collected in 2007 and $2,341 in 2008, Lynch said.

The food contributions had a dip, going from a high of 3,294 pounds in 2007 down slightly to 3,114 pounds last year.

"We're hoping to beat those records," Lynch said.

Over the 11-county area, the goal is more than 12 tons of food, she said.

The drive was succeeding in Warren because of people like Kathleen McLaughlin, Lou Mascaro, Ann Rossman, Marilyn Hildum, and Debbie Swanson, who each went out of their way to drop off contributions of food, money or both, around noon.

"People need it," Mascaro said.

"There are people who are less fortunate," Swanson said. "I like to do what I can."

Hildum, who contributed food and volunteered during the event, told Times Observer job shadow Megan Geary she wanted to "help the less fortunate to have a good Thanksgiving."

"You never know when you'll need the services of a food bank or food pantry," event co-chair Michael Boyd told Geary. "For example, the budget impasse... a lot of people were stretched thin as far as income."

Minich said, "Northwest is always involved in the community, so every chance we get to do something like this, we jump at the chance."