Halfway through the Buckets of Hope project, some grocery stores have reported a shortage on certain items, but plan to restock shelves by this afternoon.

Pine Grove Baptist Church on Airport Road volunteered as the Richmond County collection point for the Buckets of Hope project and spearheaded by the North Carolina Baptist Men’s Association. The food collected will go to Haiti.

The items are available at most grocery stores, but Food Lions in both Hamlet and Rockingham have reported the 20-ounce containers of sugar are selling fast.

This is most likely attributed to the Buckets of Hope project, said Ron Davis, store manager of Food Lion in Hamlet.

“I noticed the container sugar was low when I went to help a customer look for some,” Davis said. “We didn’t know about it (Buckets of Hope) ahead of time.”

Jeremy Chase, assistant store manager of a Rockingham Food Lion says they have also seen container-sized sugar running low.

“Sugar is running a little bit low,” Chase said. “But it depends on the store.”

Complete buckets include: Two five-pound bags of long grain enriched rice, one 48-ounce plastic bottle of cooking oil, two 2-pound bags of dry red or 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 jar smooth peanut butter and one white kitchen trash can size plastic bag.

“I’d love to have 1,000 but our total for the week is at 61 buckets,” said Nicole Blake Wednesday afternoon. She is coordinator of the Richmond County Buckets of Hope project and member of Pine Grove Baptist Church.

Although the total is more than 400 shy of their original goal of 500, many people have promised to drop off their buckets by Friday afternoon or early Saturday morning when they begin to load the truck, according to Blake.

“I feel like people are going to wait until Thursday or Friday,” Blake said. “I’ve had some people say they’re going to wait until then.”

For more information, go the NCBMA Web site at www.ncmissions.org.

Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church is located at 275 Airport Road, Rockingham and is taking donations from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. daily and from 8 a.m. until noon on Saturday.

Staff writer Bryan Stewart can be reached at 997-3111 ext. 15 or by e-mail at bstewart@yourdailyjournal.com.