Rigby Police Department seeking community support with jam and jelly drive 

RIGBY, Idaho (KIFI) - Many of us are focusing on opportunities and goals that this new year will bring.

The Rigby Police Department is doing the same, but they need our help.

Rigby Police Chief Sam Tower says resolutions are made to be followed and hopefully make us better people.

"Our resolution is to do what we can to better serve our community. Not just through law enforcement capabilities and responses but to help other nonprofits that provide other services that also help our law enforcement goals," Tower said.

During the month of January, Rigby Police will be doing a jam and jelly drive. 

The goal is to build a safer community by filling hungry bellies.

"I believe in crime prevention not just crime response," Tower said. "There is a causal link between food, security and crime. There's a new study that actually came out in October that is still waiting for approval to be published, but I'm aware of the study and it shows the causal link between food assistance, allocations, issuance and rising crime."

For years, the department has assisted the Giving Cupboard nonprofit group with food distribution.

During their service, they became aware of some of the food pantry's needs. 

"It was kind of an eye-opening experience. We learned that with the expiration of some of the food assistance programs mainly the farmers to family program, There's going to be what is call a 'food cliff.' They're going to lose about 50% of the food that they receive from the USDA," Tower said.

Some specific things they need are canned foods, stews and hearty soups; however, what stood out the most was that the pantry gets a lot of peanut butter, but not much jam or jelly.

"What kid doesn't like peanut butter and jelly? I like peanut butter jelly. I figured hey, let's do a jam and jelly drive," Tower said.

The donations will be delivered to the Giving Cupboard the first week of February.

If you would like to drop off some jelly, they're asking the donations come in plastic containers, not glass.