KILLEEN, Texas — Texas Troop 287 with the Scouts BSA played a big part in tying the knot on 2,500 grocery basket kits for military and civilian families in need.
On Tuesday, members of the troop helped bag the grocery baskets for the Killeen Food Care Center. The center's Executive Director Raymond Cockrell says it's important for him to help kids commit to service at a young age.
"For a number of years, Troop 287 has come and help us build our Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets, bags of groceries," Cockrell said. "I wanted to get kids involved as much as possible. I believe and we believe if we teach them to have a servant heart at early age it'll carry with them the rest of their life."
The troop members say they're more than happy to help. They work as a team to make jobs easy and serve the community.
"It's basically like presents for them instead of like going and buying things for them, you can help them out with basic necessities," 14-year-old member Bella Larson said.
"It's actually really nice and you think that it's like a lot of teamwork to do with your troop," 12-year-old Isabelle McCoy said. She says she's proud of her troop for the work they do.
"I think it's really good because they get to experience something that some people don't get to experience. Some people don't get to have Thanksgiving and some people do," said 11-year-old member Natalie Moomaw.
Cockrell says the center is concerned about running out of food, though.
He's asking that the community can help out in any way possible. If they don't get the resources they need, they may not be able to provide.
"For the first time in my six years being the executive director, we have serious challenges in sourcing groceries for our facility," Cockrell said. "Within four to six weeks if we're not able to source groceries from alternative sources, there's a possibility we're gonna have very little to hand out to the community."
Cockrell says people can drop donations off at the center's dock and make cash donations as well. He says anything will help.