KLER/Key Club Stuff the Bus hauls in 1.5 tons of food

 

The second annual “Stuff the Bus” event was held Friday and Saturday at Glenwood IGA and Barney’s Harvest Foods. KLER Radio and Key Club of Orofino High School members sponsored the event. Key Club members shown are (l to r) Taeh Burke, Madison Parks, Tanner Schwartz, Ashley Frank, Devin Broncheau, Dale Kellar and Dustin Berry.

This past weekend, a generous community gave to those who are struggling by donating 3,000 pounds of staple food items and paper products to the second annual Stuff the Bus.

KLER Radio and the Key Club of Orofino hosted the event for the second consecutive year, with big results. A school district 171 bus Nov. 9-10 was set up at local grocery stores Glenwood IGA and Barney’s Harvest Foods. During two-hour live remote broadcasts, listeners were encouraged to come by the stores and purchase canned items, boxed foods or paper products that would be donated to the three local food banks in Orofino.

General Manager of KLER Radio, Jeff Jones, said, “All the kids who participated both days from Key Club and our staff at the station were blown away by the generosity of the people who came by our bus. It wasn’t uncommon to see shoppers come out of the stores with a cart full of groceries, and leave them with the bus. Plus people would just walk right up to one of our Key Club kids and say, here’s $20, buy what every you might need.” Advisor to Key Club Ashley Sartini said cash donations seemed to have no limits. “One of our girls came running up to us with a $100 bill and said a gentlemen gave it to her to place into our cash donations. It really does our young people well to see how generous people are, and then to know that their work collecting food is going to a worthwhile cause.”

Saturday afternoon the three food banks located at St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Seventh-day Adventist Church, and Lifeline Food Bank, were visited by the bus and each received a third of the weekend haul. Donations continue to be taken at both IGA and Barneys with the foods to be delivered before the holiday season.

Jones said, “We didn’t keep track of how much food we collected the first year, but if people continue to give the same way next year, we’re going to have to get a bigger bus!”