The Honey Brook Food Pantry (HBFP) recently announced the results of its March Madness fundraiser, which creates a friendly competition where local companies vie against each other to see who can donate the most to the pantry.

Since 2018, the March Madness competition has asked local businesses to collect nonperishable goods and monetary donations to help the 700 clients that the HBFP serves each month. Each year, competition organizers create a three-week tournament with seeding and brackets to coincide with the NCAA March Madness Tournament.

This year, however, the fundraiser was modified to focus on monetary donations, which will allow the pantry to purchase dairy products and meats for its clients.

This year's event also focused on raising money for the HBFP's Kids Programs. Each week's donations supported one of three different Kids Programs at the pantry, which serves about 250 to 300 children per month.

Week one supported the Backpack Program, which provides backpacks full of nonperishable food items to students in need during the school year. The backpacks are filled with at least 15 healthy nonperishable foods, like peanut butter, granola bars, nuts and juices, as well as tuna and chicken, in lightweight foil packages. The food items are stored in plain backpacks and distributed in the Honey Brook and Twin Valley elementary centers by the school nurses.

Week two focused on the Under 4 Years Program, which provides children with baby foods, infant rice or oatmeal, nutritional supplement beverages, whole-grain cereals, crackers and peanut butter. Bath soap, lotions, diapers, bottles and bibs are also provided. Age-appropriate supplies are offered for children on distribution days in the wellness tent.

Week three was dedicated to the Summer Kids Program. Through this outreach, HBFP provides a three- to four-day supply of various food items and educational supplies every month to qualifying clients.

This year, seven teams competed by donating money during the three-week competition. The donations were averaged by the number of employees in the company, which translated to their score.

This year's winner was Knies Insurance Group, located in Honey Brook. Knies worked its way up the bracket from third place in week one. The agency finished week three with a strong enough donation push to finish in first place.

Additional teams were The Wright Agency in second place, Honeybrook Golf Club in third place, Suburban Brewing Company in fourth place, Blue Marsh Insurance in fifth place, Kemper Equipment in sixth place and R-V Industries in seventh place.

In total, this year's March Madness fundraiser raised $7,023 for the HBFP.

For more information about the HBFP, visit http://www.honeybrookfoodpantry.org or search for "Honey Brook Food Pantry" on Facebook. For up-to-date information about food distributions, call 610-273-6102 or contact Ken Ross, HBFP director, at KRoss1414@aol.com.