As part of a 3 day youth conference we always have a service project to help the local community and to teach the youth the value of service. This year it was arranged for the youth and leaders to provide much needed service to "The Foodbank of Southern California" 1444 San Francisco Ave. Long Beach CA 90813. The youth (boys and girls) range in age from 12 to 18 years old. All the boys participating are registered Boy Scouts or Varsity Scouts. After a quick training session everyone got busy sorting, cleaning, and packing the food boxes. Some prepared the the boxes by taping the bottom and distributing the boxes to the tables to be filled. Others sorted large bins of donated food. Some of the containers were unusable and were thrown out. This sorting process filled 4 dumpsters. Of the usable cans and plastic containers of food, those were cleaned and boxed. The filled boxes were then placed on pallets, 48 to a pallet. At the end of the 3+ hours of work time, there were 850 boxes of food ready for distribution. The volunteers felt good about being able to help, and the Foodbank Staff were very appreciative of the amount of work that was accomplished.