Guthrie County Farm Bureau is preparing for one of their annual events.

Board President Heath Blomquist says that they have been doing the Grocery Cart Races for seven years now, and are looking forward to once again holding the fun event on March 21st this year to raise food and monetary donations for local food pantries. He tells Racoon Valley Radio how the event is done.

“We invite local teams from around the county and we go to the local grocery store and we collect food items for the local food pantry. We swap back and forth between Guthrie (Center) and Panora and invite different organizations in the county for that. So we’re trying to raise a bunch of money for them. We asked teams to provide $100 worth of groceries and then Farm Bureau matches that and donates an additional $100. This year we’re actually going to increase that to $200. So all in all, we’re looking to donate around $3,000 worth of food and money to the local food pantries.”

Blomquist mentions that each team gets four minutes to try and get as close to $100 worth of groceries as possible, with the winning team being the one that comes the closest without going over. He adds that the winning team will receive name recognition and a small trophy.