Buckets of Hope can save lives in Haiti

ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WALA) - BUCKETS OF HOPE

At the First Baptist Church in Cantonment buckets are being filled.

"They'll have flour, sugar, two bags of rice."

Associate pastor, Drayton Smith, has taken the lead in the program called " Buckets of Hope ". It is an idea he heard about at a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"When they first mentioned this thing it just touched my heart and we need to get on board with this and we need to do it," Smith said.

The donation of food is not new, But the buckets make this program different. After they're emptied they will likely find many uses, from storing water, to hauling debris.

"The bucket is probably the most important part of all the contents here," he said.

And what they're asking people to put in the buckets is very specific.

"The black beans are 2 pound bags and there's two of them," Smith explained. "The rice, there's two bags of rice and they're 5 pound bags," he added.

There is oil, flour, noodles, sugar, and peanut butter. All packed in just such a way that they all fit when the lid is snapped on. If it all sounds too complicated to you, don't worry. You can write a check and they'll buy these same supplies, pack them, and ship them down to Haiti.

"If you give $10 or $100, every bit of that, 100 percent, goes straight to Haitian relief," Smith said.

It's a novel idea that takes some simple items, in a simple container, and turns it all into hope.