Granger Community Church hosts annual food drop

GRANGER, Ind.--- Granger Community Church hosts its annual food drop on Saturday. The event starts at 9 and will help 15 shelters and food pantries in 10 cities across Michiana.

This is the 18th year for the drop. The donations come courtesy of Granger's annual Christmas offering. 

"We started out fairly small and over these 18 years, now we’re up to 75,000 pounds of food," said Ted Bryant, Executive Pastor of Adult Ministries. "We’re able to impact about 6300 families. That’s a pretty large footprint of impact in the Michiana area."

Officials say they chose this time of year for the drive because of how local pantries and shelters are depleted of supplies during the holiday season. 

"The local agencies, the food pantries, they actually exhaust their supplies around this time of year because of the holidays," said Bryant. "So we strategically chose this time of year to help the agencies do what they do so well all year long. If we can restock those agencies as well as distribute food to the local neighborhoods at this time of year, it makes a tremendous impact."

Granger Community Church is expecting around 2,000 volunteers to help pack boxes and load trucks on Saturday. Those interested in helping can come to the church's Granger and Elkhart campuses as well as Waypoint Church in Goshen.