The Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) Chapter of It’s Spooky To Be Hungry® has held its annual grassroots food and monetary drive on or around the fourth Saturday in October annually since 1995. Although it has grown extensively over the years, Spooky’s mission and model remain true to its initial goals: bringing people of all ages together in fun, brief, significant, community-building volunteer work, working together to fight hunger. Spooky is primarily a neighbor-to-neighbor effort, but now also includes organized drives in many schools, businesses, faith communities, and civic organizations.

Spooky CSRA is our flagship chapter and began with only a handful of volunteers -- adults and children – in three suburban neighborhoods in Columbia County, just outside Augusta, Georgia. By 2006 It’s Spooky To Be Hungry® had become the single largest grassroots service project in CSRA regional history including over 2700 volunteers, half of them children, across an eight county area of Georgia and South Carolina. The Augusta-area food and monetary drive collected almost $56,000 and over 106,000 pounds of food in just the 2006 collection. These totals translate into over 300,000 meals provided to area needy through just this one year local effort. Click here to see more details about the amazing growth the CSRA chapter has enjoyed since its inception. The many volunteers who participate in Spooky collections are supported and organized by an extensive volunteer staff. These core volunteers work together to make sure Spooky continues fun, easy, and satisfying for all, even as it has grown.

In 2004, It’s Spooky To Be Hungry® won national recognition through USA WEEKEND magazine, as one of the ten best Make A Difference Day projects from among thousands of volunteer community service efforts throughout the United States. We were featured in an article in Southern Living magazine. This publicity resulted in new Spooky Chapters, in cities and towns from North Carolina to Mississippi. But our largest chapter by far remains in the greater CSRA of Georgia and South Carolina.

To accommodate its continued and remarkable growth, by 2006 the Spooky CSRA Chapter redesigned its organizational structure and formed a local partnership with Golden Harvest Food Bank, which had long been the recipient of the Augusta area Spooky collection. Our volunteer corps in Augusta, Aiken, and the surrounding areas now has access to the continuity and support that can be provided by Golden Harvest Food Bank -- a much larger organization with professional staffing and “bricks and mortar” resources -- without having to invest in and duplicate such expensive services. Golden Harvest and Spooky remain independent entities, pursuing our independent but complementary missions. And all proceeds of the Spooky drive continue to be spent solely on the purchase of food, with no deductions for administrative overhead.

What makes Spooky different from “just another food drive?”
It’s Spooky To Be Hungry® has a two-part mission: to strengthen community while working to fight hunger. We believe it is our emphasis on community-building which has given our project its vitality and success. We build community in a variety of direct and indirect ways, among them promoting volunteerism, providing leadership development opportunities, giving children and adults meaningful volunteer experience together, and building bridges between diverse parts of our larger community. If you would like to know more about what inspires and guides us, we encourage you to take a few moments and read through our core values.
It’s Spooky To Be Hungry® is a service project of the non-profit charitable corporation of Big Changes Start Small, Incorporated (BCSS). We hold trademarks for our corporate name (Big Changes Start Small), the Spooky name (It’s Spooky To Be Hungry) and our logo (a ghost holding a grocery bag.) For more details on BCSS, click here.