The City of Hastings Police Department and Dakota County Sheriff’s Office are in a challenge to see which organization can collect more food donations.
The 4th Annual Sound the Siren initiative is touted as “A friendly competition of who can collect the most Food 4 Kids Items.”
The United Way of Hastings’ Food4Kids program is run in cooperation with Coborn’s and Hastings ISD #200. Food4Kids provides weekend meals and was started when the “United Way of Hastings became aware there were students in Hastings coming to school hungry on Monday mornings. After a pilot program verified the need for weekend meal packs, UWH launched the Food4Kids program. The school district has a shared excel sheet with the number of bags each school needs each week. We work with Coborn’s to buy food for the bags and several local organizations help us pack the bags,” according to the United Way.
The program delivers an average of 200 meal bags per week to school buildings.
Food donations can be dropped off at the Hastings Police Department, Hastings City Hall or in the lobby of the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office in the County Administration Center in Hastings.
Donations can be dropped off from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays through May 14.
Suggested donations are individual serving sizes of ravioli/soups/chili, mac & cheese cups, fruit cups, cereal/oatmeal, juice/hot chocolate, healthy snacks and any kid-friendly single serving size of non-perishable food items.
Last year’s “Sound the Siren” was won by the Hastings Police Department. Total, $11,000 in donations was received. In the friendly battle, the head of the losing department will take a pie to the face.
