It's Super Bowl weekend and a local food bank will be out in force collecting donations to help feed people in need.
The Carbondale based Good Samaritan Ministries is conducting it's 10th annual Souper Bowl Saturday fund-drive - that's "soup" as in bowl of soup. Good Samaritan Executive Director Mike Heath says members of the SIU Football team will be out in force Saturday in front of area businesses with big soup bowls collecting donations that will aid food pantry in providing more help to area families.
Heath says they hope the Souper Bowl fund-raiser will bring in three or four thousand dollars. Heath says in the past year, the Good Samaritan Food pantry has seen an 18-percent increase in the number of people needing assistance. The pantry served more than 47-hundred families during 2011. Heath says they are always in need of food or money donations to help offset a decline in amount of federal commodities that the food pantry receives.