Food Drive Set for Saturday

If you want to help feed some hungry people in our community you will have a chance this Saturday.

The East Ridge Police Department, along with the alumni of the Citizens’ Police Academy are holding a food drive to benefit the East Ridge Community Food Pantry.

East Ridge’s finest will be set up in the parking lot of the Speedway at 4222 Ringgold Road just next door to the Fire and Police Services Center. The event will begin at noon and go through 3 p.m.

Earl Wilson, an alumnus of the police academy, said it’s a great way to feed hungry people and meet some East Ridge police officers.

“We’ve got a lot of hungry people in this community,” Wilson said. “This food drive is one way to help address the issue.”

Wilson said the food pantry, which has been in operation for several years at the Methodist church on Prater Road, has seen the number of boxes of food given out every other Wednesday rise from 150 boxes to about 180.

Wilson said anyone wanting to donate is encouraged to bring canned goods and other non-perishable items to the drive.

The East Ridge Community Food Pantry is located at the East Ridge United Methodist Church at 1601 Prater Road. It distributes food to those in need on the first and third Wednesday’s of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to its Facebook page.

If you want to learn more about the pantry and how you might be able to help, visit its Facebook page.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.