Walk & Knock food drive sees donations rise 13%

Walk & Knock, the single-day food drive for the Clark County Food Bank that occurred earlier this month, collected 286,000 pounds of food. That’s an increase of 13 percent from last year.

Walk & Knock also expects about $15,000 in cash donations. This year’s food drive broke a six-year streak of declining donations from a high of 335,000 pounds in 2010 to 252,000 pounds last year.

“We are thrilled with this year’s donations and will continue to seek ways to get the word out about this unique community activity,” Walk & Knock President Justin Wood said in a news release.

He said several efforts at distributing paper grocery bags seem to have paid off. Approximately 30,000 bags with instructions for donating to Walk & Knock were mailed and another 8,000 were distributed by high school students. This effort could expand next year.

“We saw an 80 percent increase in the neighborhoods where we dropped bags on doorsteps,” Wood said. “It looks like that method works well and it helps youth groups support their activities — a win, win.”

Walk & Knock, which is an all-volunteer nonprofit, is seeking leaders to serve on its board of directors.