'Spooky's' big success

As Columbia County residents sit down to dinner this evening, they can be thankful that there is food on the table. And for many of those residents, they also can be thankful for a local food drive that just keeps getting bigger and better.

Last week, Its Spooky to be Hungry totaled up its collections from this years pre-Halloween food drive. The final figures are a glowing testament to the staggering generosity of our community: With more than 1,000 volunteers combing 80 neighborhoods, Spooky collected nearly 35,000 pounds of food and more than $17,000 for the Golden Harvest Food Bank.

In fact, Spooky has become so successful that the effort is now recognized as Golden Harvests No. 1 food drive - surpassing drives at the Savannah River Site and by letter carriers.

Even more incredible is that all this success comes at a time when many charities are reporting a drop in income, as citizens funnel their money to the now-overfunded relief effort for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

We see in these results that the people of our community care deeply about our hometown needy, says Spooky chairman Evelyn Browne, who helped start the food drive in Columbia County and has seen it expand to Aiken and Richmond counties.

The Thanksgiving season is a time for gratitude. For the hungry in Golden Harvests 25-county service area, the efforts of Spooky and our community mean theres plenty to be thankful for.