By James Feichtner

Fishers and Noblesville residents might be shocked to see brightly colored toilets in their front yards throughout this month. But this potty appearance is no prank. It’s part of Emmanuel United Methodist Church’s food drive for Hamilton County.

Returning for its second year, Flush Out Hunger uses brightly colored toilets to motivate residents to donate food items to help support hunger in Hamilton County.

“We just thought it was an excellent symbol for Flushing Out Hunger,” Debbie Parker of EUMC said. “We have two purposes for this and that is first of all to bring food in Hamilton County for food pantries, but secondly just to raise awareness that actually there are a number of food insecure families in our county.”

The drive will involve teams each using different colored toilets to see who can raise the most food in the county.

“There are four teams competing this year so it will be orange, green, blue or purple,” Parker said. “The actual toilet is placed in their yard that basically says, ‘You have been selected to flush out hunger,’ and asks for them to give a donation to have the potty be removed from their yard or they can throw in a little extra donation and they can also choose where the potty goes next.”

The potties can be passed on to both residences and businesses if they are willing to participate. EUMC is hoping to beat last years overall goal of pounds of food raised.

“We’ve had a lot of support and we brought about 6,000 pounds of food in last year,” Parker said. “We are hoping to exceed our 6,000 by at least 1,000, so we’re hoping to bring in between seven to 10 thousand pounds this year.”

For those interested in sponsoring their own toilet or learning more about the drive, visit http://www.emmanuelumc.org/