38 tons of food brings the glow

Wow!

When we're making a point, we rarely use the exclamation mark. We prefer to let the facts speak for themselves.

So here are some pretty incredible facts.

During Friday's Share Your Christmas Holiday Food Drive, Douglas County residents donated 76,156 pounds of food.

That's more than the food drives in Carson City and Reno combined.

That translates into slightly more than 38 tons of food.

Valley residents also donated $37,539.25 to Carson Valley Community Food Closet.

The food filled the food closet and two volunteers' garages.

That's a great job, Carson Valley, and we should pat ourselves on the back this Christmas season.

But there's a sobering fact on the other side of the equation.

Chairman Len Frueh said the food closet is on track to serve 440,000 meals this year. That's a 30-percent increase over last year, which also saw an increase in demand.

All the food gathered on Friday will keep the food closet going through the end of the first quarter of 2010, if demand keeps up at the present rate.

We know that the folks at the food closet are a cheery lot, who deal with adversity by helping. But we know they wouldn't mind if things got better, and fewer people needed their help.