A one-day effort, staged Saturday, Nov. 22 at MarVal Main Street Market in the Vineyard Square Shopping Center on McHenry Avenue in Escalon, sought to help stock the shelves at the local food pantry and provide food for families in need during the upcoming holidays.
A cooperative effort of the City of Escalon’s eTrans transit service, MarVal and the C.A.R.E., Community Action Resources of Escalon, food pantry, the annual Stuff the Bus food drive was a success.
“We had $225.72 in cash, 20 turkeys, one ham and 107 bags,” Transit Coordinator John Andoh said once everything was tabulated.
He said the food in the more than 100 donated bags translated to 1,852 pounds of food.
The 2025 total surpassed that of last year, with 1,369 total pounds of food donated in 2024.
Throughout the course of the collection effort, with records dating back to 2010, Andoh said over 28,000 pounds of food have been donated for use at C.A.R.E.
He was among those spending some time outside MarVal on Saturday, explaining the collection effort and asking shoppers to consider helping out the local food pantry. C.A.R.E. Director Sherrie Vaden was on hand as well, along with several other volunteers, who were loading bags on to the eTrans bus parked on site.
Also assisting was teen Jazmin Gonzalez, a high school junior who was volunteering to earn some community service hours.
“I love it,” Gonzalez said of getting involved in the community, adding that the ‘stuff the bus’ effort was a good way for people to help those in need.
“I like the idea of it, it’s cute,” she said of loading the donated bags of groceries into the bus to help ‘stuff’ it.
Those heading in to the market could pick up a list of most needed items and purchase them, with a discount offered by MarVal on the food purchased for the Stuff the Bus drive. The store also had some pre-packaged bags of food items that shoppers could take to the register and purchase for the food collection effort.
Vaden said C.A.R.E. is always in need of donations and especially needed during the holiday period for Thanksgiving and Christmas are 10- to 12-pound turkeys, boxed mashed potatoes, boxed stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, canned yams, packaged bread crumbs, canned vegetables and boxed baking goods such as flour and sugar.
Monetary donations are also accepted and checks made out to C.A.R.E. can be mailed to Escalon Ministerial Association, P.O. Box 1, Escalon, CA 95320.
C.A.R.E. is an outreach of the Escalon Ministerial Association. The local food pantry is at 1601 Second St., and serves residents of Escalon, Collegeville and Farmington. Programs include supplemental food distribution on Wednesdays, the Senior Brown Bag twice-monthly program on the second and fourth Tuesdays and the ‘Veggie Van’ mobile farmers market on the second Tuesday.
