Southside Baptist Church has launched a Buckets of Hope campaign to aid hungry families in Haiti.

Pastor Bill Pritchett said Buckets of Hope is a program through both the international and North American Baptist mission boards. Each bucket can feed a Haitian family for a week.

“Across the 40,000 or so members they issued a challenge to voluntarily do the bucket of hope,” Pritchett said. “We challenged our church and the community to become involved. We are waiting to see what kind of response we can get.”

Pritchett said the church hasn’t actually set a goal, but would like to send as many buckets as possible.

“We’ll collect the buckets at Southside Baptist Church until March 10, and we’ll transport them to the state missions office in Montgomery,” he said.

The buckets will be transported to Florida and then to Haiti.

Those interested should purchase a new 5-gallon plastic bucket with a form-fitting lid, and include two 5-pound bags of long grain enriched rice, one 48-ounce plastic bottle of cooking oil, two 2-pound bags of dried black beans, one 5-pound bag of all-purpose flour, one 20-ounce cylinder container of granulated white sugar, two 1-pound boxes of spaghetti noodles, one 40 ounce plastic jar of smooth peanut butter and one 2-gallon plastic Ziploc storage bag.

Pritchett said the bucket of food is enough to feed a Haitian family for a week.

The bucket will allow the family to carry water or other items.

“There are some boundaries. The bucket needs to be new and please don’t deviate from the materials,” Pritchett said.

The items can be store brand products.

“It’s estimated each bucket costs $30,” Pritchett said. “One lady told me she purchased hers for $26 and some change.”

Pritchett said they are also asking people to include $10 in an envelope to help pay for transporting the bucket from Florida to Haiti.