VADNAIS HEIGHTS — How many groceries can fit into an SUV? Exactly 2,854.

Every Thanksgiving, leaders of First Lutheran Church of White Bear Lake challenge their parishioners and the greater community to fill a semi trailer with food for the White Bear Lake Area Food Shelf.

Greg Nuss, a business owner from Grant, takes the challenge to the extreme. Last year, he invited his daughter and her friend to go grocery shopping for as many items they could fit in an SUV. They bought more than $1,000 worth of food.

This year, Nuss invited several church youths to help shop and pack his Yukon XL even fuller.

This time, Nuss gave Vadnais Heights Festival Foods manager Kevin Donovan a forewarning. Donovan, who happens to be a food shelf board member, prepared a pallet stacked several feet high of the food shelf’s most needed items.

With youth volunteer Bobbie Collins shoving macaroni and cheese under the seats and stacking soup cans in the cup holders, the pallet didn’t even fill half the truck.

Collins has been to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area five times and considers himself an expert packer. That said, he and other volunteers headed back into the store to load up on more goods.

Several brimming shopping carts later, the rear of the Yukon was nearing capacity. But the shopping was far from over.

Nuss called for a tow truck and the youths got to fill both the front passenger and driver seats. When the Cheerios and Charmin was stacked too high to open the doors or windows, they tossed in pudding and pasta through the sunroof. Once the last item was tossed in, the receipt came to $4,576.

After a tow back to the church, everything was unloaded into the building’s atrium, where a few bags of groceries already sat and hopefully many more will be added in upcoming weeks. The trailer, which is now on display outside the church, will be loaded after the Thanksgiving eve service.

“We might just need two trailers,” Nuss said.

Kristine Goodrich can be reached at 651-407-1233 or vadnaisheightsnews@press pubs.com.

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