Leave Your Canned, Boxed Food on Your Doorstep Saturday, Bloomfield

You may have noticed an empty plastic bag hanging from your front door or mailbox this week. 

It's part of the annual "Scouting for Food" initiative from the Boy Scouts of America; the scouts will pick up the filled bags of food beginning Saturday morning in Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills.

Here's what you need to know — and how you can help if you didn't happen to get a bag.

• What's this all about? Scouting for Food is a southeast Michigan effort; scouts in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe and Livingston counties participate. The donations support Gleaners.
• What to put in the bag? Boxed or canned goods only (peanut butter, tuna, soup, ravioli, beef stew, and other high-protein items, for example).
• What NOT to put in the bag? Anything perishable, frozen or in glass.
• When will the food be picked up? The bag collection begins at 9 a.m. Saturday and will continue throughout the day.
• How many will be collected? The goal is 800,000 bags of food.
• How else can you help? Bloomfield Patch is participating in a virtual food drive to support Gleaners. You can buy anything from a box of granola bars to food for a family for a month by following this link.

Bloomfield Patch reader and blogger Kelli Dade recently left a comment that said the scouts, including the Scouts of Troop 1005 at Christ Church Cranbrook, will begin collecting filled donation bags on your front porches and by your mailboxes at 10:30 a.m.

Canned and boxed goods will be donated to Gleaners and Yad Ezra (Kosher items).

"It will be chilly, so you may not see their uniforms right away under their jackets and hoodies, but these boys will give up part of their weekends to gather and sort donations, so please be as generous as you can," Dade wrote.

Read Kelli's latest blog: Bloomfield Boy Scout’s project helps take U.S. technology out of Third World waste stream