Appleton neighborhood begins food drive

APPLETON, Wis. (WBAY) - The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a lot more people to rely on area food pantries since this past March, and a neighborhood in Appleton is responding to that need with a collection drive of its own.

Neighbors, including three members of the Raudabaugh family, made several stops Monday as they went door to door looking for bags of food left outside homes in the neighborhoods surrounding Memorial Park in Appleton.

“In the spring we were doing a little bit smaller batches, maybe a hundred houses we’d go out in, and target in a single weekend and this time we did four hundred houses, so it’s probably a half mile radius around our house in a big circle and just going to each house one by one and asking them to donate,” said Nicole Raudabaugh.

The food collected Monday is being donated to Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, which then distributes everything to local food shelves.

After several drives in the spring at the start of the pandemic, this one is meant to help out just before the Thanksgiving holiday.

Family members used notes to let neighbors know of the food drives ahead of time.

So far, neighborhood participation has been better than expected, and most people seem more than willing to help out.

“This is just this street and the street behind us. So we have, and my wife was saying earlier we probably have like, this is only like a tenth of the houses that we put little fliers by,” said Bill Raudabaugh.

Organizers say they hope their effort inspires others to also take action.

“This is an easy thing to do. You need to put a few cans in a bag and put it on your step. It means so much to the people who are struggling right now especially people who have reduced hours, are out of work, but they need to go to a food pantry, and frankly, a lot of them are going to the food pantry for the first time right now so it’s definitely something we can do to make a difference,” said Nicole Raudabaugh.

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