About two weeks ago, a group of people dashed through a closed supermarket, putting groceries in carts as fast as they possibly could.

No, they weren’t looting the place. In fact, they were doing a good deed that will help hungry people in the Fort Dodge area.

The people filling those shopping carts were members of local organizations like Sertoma and Kiwanis. The event was the 2024 Service Clubs United Foodraiser. The site was the Fareway store at 1231 First Ave. S.

When it was all over, thousands of dollars worth of groceries had been collected for the Fort Dodge Community School District, Holy Trinity Food Pantry, The Lotus Project, and Upper Des Moines Opportunity,

This shopping spree emerged from a new initiative of Kiwanis International that seeks to have all service clubs work together. The initiative was embraced by these clubs in Fort Dodge: Sertoma, Kiwanis, Rotary, Daybreak Rotary, Noon Lions and Evening Lions.

Together, those groups came up with the concept of going shopping to support local food pantries. Each club was partnered with one of the food pantries. However, this shopping trip would not be a leisurely stroll through the aisles, putting this and that in the cart.

Two members from each club were tasked with filling their cart with $500 worth of non-perishable food. However, they only had six minutes to do it. So the club members had to hustle.

It was probably a lot of fun, and the effort produced nice results for the local food banks.

The fact that the members of these six service clubs so willingly embraced the concept of doing projects together is good news for our community. We thank them for what they did for the food pantries and look forward to what they will do next.