By Daniel Human
It was a scene more fitting of a European marketplace than the corner of a Kokomo church parking lot.
Shouts of “Who needs green beans?” and “I’ll trade you some tomatoes for a can of meat” emerged from a blocked-off corner within Bible Baptist Church’s parking lot Sunday afternoon.
The sequestered area of asphalt was the bartering corner that evolved as part of the Kokomo Rescue Mission’s “Yes, We Can!” canned food drive.
The event collected 19,315 pounds of food, about 340 pounds shy of the mission’s goal of 10 tons.
Despite missing the goal, Bebe Dorris, the mission’s director of development, was elated with the total after the mission collected slightly more than seven tons last year.
The food will go toward supplying the mission’s kitchen and be given to families that need it. It will be a big help, Dorris said, during a year when the mission expects to serve 19,000 more meals than last year.
“We’re just thrilled with the total,” she said. “We can’t say how happy we are with the numbers with more people coming into the dining room.”
First Christian Church contributed the most with 325 pounds, Dorris said.
Hundreds of Howard County middle and high school-aged children and teens spent two hours Sunday going door-to-door collecting the food.
Cars filled Bible Baptist’s parking lot as the teams dropped off the food so the mission could weigh and load the cans into box trucks.
The trading emerged as part of the “mega food” contest within the can drive.
Each team that participated was assigned to collect one of eight “in-demand” foods at the mission: corn, green beans, other beans, fruit, meat, peas, soup and tomato products.
The team that collected the most cans of the assigned foods won prizes.
“They were doing it at the end of the lines, so we gave them an area,” Dorris said.
As lines of cars slowed into gridlock in the parking lot, the bartering area bustled as the kids and their equally-energized adult team leaders tried to swap pantry items so they could edge ahead in their food categories.
Family Life Minister Mario Gonzales from Fairfield Christian Church sat in front of his team’s collection of 70 or so cans of corn in a van as the kids on his team scrambled around the area in a last-minute effort to win.
“What drives us is the need that there is,” Gonzales said, adding that he wants Fairfield Christian to help the Rescue Mission more. “But, we’re more concerned about what’s going on in our community. It’s about giving to the people.”
The prizes were meager, Dorris said, mostly rewards such as gift cards, but it’s become a contest of bragging rights that also helps the mission replenish its supplies.
The mission also staged a competition to see what team can gather the strangest food during the two-hour collecting stint.
Teams turned in everything from exotic coffee beans to canned octopus, but it was haggis — a sheep organ medley — that won Bible Baptist Church the right to say it collected the most outlandish canned culinary item.
• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at (765) 454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.
