PARKERSBURG – A Thanksgiving Food Drive will be held Wednesday and Thursday this week at the Wood County Resiliency Center.

The food drive, which is being put on by Wood County officials and the Salvation Army, will be held from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day at the drive-through bays.

“We are going to be having a donation drive on Nov. 12-13,” said Sydney Weber, director for the Wood County Resiliency Center. “There are so many people in our community who are struggling this year, especially with the pause in SNAP and we wanted to be able to offer them as normal of a Thanksgiving as possible and supplement some of those needed items to be able to make a Thanksgiving dinner at home.”

Organizers are looking for a number of items usually associated with Thanksgiving, but need to be nonperishable or shelf stable, she said, adding all expiration dates will be checked and any food past that date will not be accepted.

Items organizers are looking for include cranberry sauce, canned gravy, corn bread, canned corn, stuffing, green beans, instant mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, rolls. biscuits, white rice, canned yams and more.

On Tuesday, Nov. 18, officials plan to distribute the collected items, starting at 8 a.m.

“It is a first-come, first-serve basis,” Weber said. “We will give out boxes until we run out.”

Weber said they didn’t want to make any promises to people to have a certain number of food boxes available in case donations are down.

Weber, some county employees and the Salvation Army staff will be on hand both days to take the donations.

People can also make monetary donations this week. Weber and officials with the Salvation Army of Parkersburg would use that money to buy items for the drive which would then be added to what has been collected and distributed on Nov. 18.

Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com