Many people may have come to the door of their home on Saturday and found a request in the form of a door hanger. In addition to the request, there are instructions on that door hanger: leave a bag of nonperishable food items in a bag on the front porch, stoop or steps next Saturday and local Boy Scouts will stop by to pick it up. They will return to any home where a door hanger was hung, in hopes of adding to their collection of food to donate to local food pantries.

It’s been a highly successful campaign in the past. Most years, the Boy Scouts collect approximately 70,000 pounds of food to donate to eastern North Carolina’s 27 food pantries.

The reason it’s such a successful campaign is because the Boy Scouts make it so easy. No one has to go anywhere. No one has to do much of anything. All a person has to do is load a grocery bag up with cans of food and/or other nonperishable foods that are most likely already sitting in the pantry, ready to go — as is a paper or plastic bag to hold them. No one has to pick up or drop off anything, and a few cans of food are pretty inexpensive.

In Beaufort County, at least one in five children is considered “food insecure,” meaning they lack reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. That’s one reason why it’s so important to keep the local pantries stocked.

So if you received a door hanger this past Saturday, mark the coming Saturday on the calendar, and have your bag of food ready for pick up.

Help feed the less fortunate among us. Thanks to local Boy Scouts, it really is just that easy.