Every year when November comes around, people across the country look forward to what is, for many, their heartiest and heftiest meal of the year: Thanksgiving dinner.

However, not all people are fortunate enough to be able to celebrate this holiday with the bountiful amounts of food that many enjoy.

Scouting for Food is a program that hopes to remedy this for as many families as possible. This program is a nationwide collaboration between the Boy Scouts of America and food banks throughout the country, which collects food donated from members of the community and distributes it to the needy in time for Thanksgiving.

In the Stanford District, which includes Boy Scout troops from Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Los Altos, the scouts work in conjunction with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. The program is split up into two weeks.

"The first week each patrol [a subsection of a boy scout troop] gets a territory and goes out with bags that have instructions printed on them for how to donate to the program," Mark Frankfurt, an Eagle Scout from Troop 57 of Palo Alto, said. "We go door to door and deliver bags to all the houses in our section. The next week the same patrols go back to their territories and pick up bags filled with food that people have left out on their doorsteps. People are pretty much always friendly, and those who forget to put their bags outside will always run into their pantries to grab some cans to give us."

Once the scouts have collected all of the food in their section, they take it to a designated drop-off point. There, the food is weighed and put into large crates, which are loaded into the Second Harvest Food Bank’s truck for distribution to families through food distribution agencies.

"We stayed from about 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with most people coming in the afternoon to drop off the food they had collected," said Neil Bhateja of Troop 57, who was working at the food drop-off point. "We wrote down their organization number and how many pounds they collected, and then loaded the food into crates that Second Harvest provided us with, which a Second Harvest employee loaded into the truck."

Miguel Duran, an employee at the Second Harvest Food Bank, helped the Boy Scouts of Troop 57 who were working at the Palo Alto collection location.

"The food we gather here benefits the communities of the Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties," Duran said. "It goes to less fortunate low-income families."

Duran has been working at Second Harvest for the last six years, and says that his job is emotionally rewarding.

"I like my job," said Duran. "I like what I do, because I’m part of the community too."

Ted and his wife Donna Marcopulos are the co-chairs of the Scouting for Food program. According to Ted Marcopulos, the program consistently brings in around 40,000 pounds of food each year.

"This event is one of the highlights of the year for me, it just feels so good to see this incredible Boy Scout organization come together for such a good activity that benefits folks in our local communities." Marcopulos said.

According to Duran, the food gathered will support families in need for around two to three months, and throughout the rest of the year Second Harvest has other programs and will do more food drives. Second Harvest receives 13 million dollars from the government each year to purchase food and maintain its expenses, but much of the food actually comes from the donations of people in the community.

According to Second Harvest Food Bank’s website, their main program "provides a variety of grocery items to hundreds of non-profit agencies in Santa Clara and San Mateo county neighborhoods. These hot meal programs, emergency food pantries and shelters serve a culturally diverse clientele of individuals, families with children and seniors."

Second Harvest Food Bank has two other established programs to help the needy. The first of these programs, "Family Harvest," provides monthly groceries to low income families with small dependent children once each month. The other program, "Operation Brown Bag," gives low-income seniors a weekly bag of groceries.

Second Harvest also has a new program called "Produce Mobile," which brings fresh fruits and vegetables to low income families, who would not otherwise have easy access to fresh produce.

Thanksgiving and Scouting for Food have already passed this year, but Second Harvest accepts and needs donations from the community all year round. According to their website, "For every dollar donated, the Food Bank provides two nutritious meals to the community." If you would like to donate to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, or need food yourself, visit www.2ndharvest.net, or call 1-866-234-3663 to donate or 1-800-984-3663 to get food.