Positively Pottstown joins “Fill the Media Lab” food drive

The Mercury’s Community Media Lab, Town Square bloggers, and other local newspapers are teaming up for a food drive to help stock the shelves of area food pantries.  With the tight job market, high unemployment, and sky-high gas, heating oil, and healthcare costs, more and more area residents are finding themselves relying on food pantries for the first time ever. 

Here’s how the food drive will work:

The Mercury, Post newspapers, including The Sanatoga Post, and various bloggers are announcing their participation in the food drive to collect at least 20,000 food items by April 7th. See The Mercury article here and The Sanatoga Post article here.  The bloggers can team up with their local pantry and feature them in recurring blog posts. They can also team up with various businesses who want to serve as collection sites.

While the food drive will run until April 7^th, we will not be holding onto all the food collected until then because that would mean it’s not on the shelves of the food pantries, getting used up by those who need it now. So… as the food is collected, it will periodically be delivered to the pantry of choice by the blogger or business. Pantries in towns throughout the region will benefit: Pottstown, North Coventry, Boyertown, Royersford, Spring City, Phoenixville, Collegeville, and the Upper Perkiomen Valley. But first we’ll take a picture of what’s collected and send it to The Mercury, where it can be pinned onto an image of the Media Lab. In this way, we will virtually “fill the Media Lab” while filling up local food pantries in reality.

 Positively Pottstown is on board! We’re going to be directing the results of our collection efforts to the Pottstown Cluster of Religious Communities, commonly known as The Cluster.  The first Pottstown business we’re teaming up with is Grumpy’s, the homemade sandwich and soup shop in The Farmers’ Market. Grumpy’s has generously offered not only to be a collection site, but to match every single food donation that comes in. That’s two for the price of one, all going to The Cluster. 

Positively Pottstown would like to team up with other locations in Pottstown. Let me know if you want to be a collection site, and I will get the word out to readers and Facebook friends.

I should note here that food items are not the only things in demand. We’re also putting a special focus on laundry detergent – it’s expensive and it’s something that tends to drop in priority when children are hungry… but kids want to go to school in fresh-smelling clothes. So please consider picking up an extra bottle of detergent the next time you’re shopping. We’re hoping to collect 1,000 bottles of detergent before all is said and done.

Now, it’s up to you. Positively Pottstown has many readers and Facebook friends outside of Pottstown. Whatever community you live in, please consider finding the food pantry, bloggers, and businesses that are taking part in our Fill the Media Lab initiative and make a donation soon. Or, since this campaign is running through Lent, consider a weekly donation. There’s a tradition of giving things up for Lent and then there’s plain, old-fashioned giving. We all thank you in advance for your support.

The Pottstown Cluster of Religious Communities
57 N. Franklin Street, Pottstown, PA 19464
610-970-5995
The Cluster welcomes all cash, food, and clothing donations between the hours of 8:30am-12:00 Monday through Friday. Please come to the back door off the alley.

Grumpy’s Handcarved Sandwiches
300 E. High Street, Pottstown, PA 19464 (in the Farmers’ Market)
610-323-1232
Open Tuesday-Saturday
Tuesday-Wednesday: 11am-6 pm
Thursday-Saturday: 8:30 am-6 pm