Helping out

HELP STUDENTS HELP FOOD PANTRY: Students at Follow the Child Montessori School in Raleigh will collect food donations next week for Urban Ministries of Wake County. Through Monday, students will collect food and take field trips to drop off the donated food at the food pantry. While on tour, they will learn how the food pantry works, sort food, stock shelves and package bulk items. Besides personal donations, students ages 9 through 12 will use proceeds from previous fundraising activities to shop for $200 worth of groceries to be donated to the nonprofit. Information about Follow the Child is available at www.followthechild.org; Urban Ministries' Web site is www.urbanmin.org.

BENEFIT FOR CHILDREN'S HOME: Baptist Children's Homes of North Carolina will hold its annual Oak Ranch Wild West Family Day and Trail Ride on Saturday. The event is a benefit for Oak Ranch, a residential home for at-risk children operated by the Baptist Children's Homes. Entertainment includes a magic show, buggy rides, puppets, live music, face painting, pony rides and a climbing wall. Children are invited to meet special guests Roscoe the Bull and Rocky the Trick Mule. Trail riders will ride through Oak Ranch's 755 acre-facility near Broadway in Lee County and along the Cape Fear River. The fee for the two-hour trail ride is $25. The ride begins at 11 a.m.; other family activities begin at 1 p.m. Food will be served from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Meals are $5 for adults and $2 for children; children younger than 3 get in for free. Visit www.bchfamily.org/ranch or call 258-5437 for information about Oak Ranch.

Check out more ways to help at share.triangle.com. For more information, contact Becky Beach at becky.beach@newsobserver.com or 829-4629, or mail details about your event to The News & Observer, 215 S. McDowell St., Raleigh, NC 27601.