Child-care experts advise parents to teach their children the value of giving to others early, when they’re still young.

For the 22 years that the Hand-to-Hand Food Drive has been around in Freeport, organizers have adhered to that insight. Older students and adults also chip in with the food drive, which helps stock the shelves at the Freeport Community Services Food Pantry. But the little ones in the Regional School Unit 5 Laugh & Learn Preschool, which provides before- and after-school care for students at Mast Landing, Morse Street and Durham Community schools, are the focal point.

“I’ve read that if you start a kid at 3 working to help others, that will continue,” said Wednesday Marstaller of Durham, founder of the Hand-to-Hand Food Drive. “I have found that so many come back, year after year.”

The Hand-to-Hand Food Drive takes place on the morning of Friday, April 1, in front of First Parish Church Congregational on Main Street, with a rain date of April 8. The line begins to form at 9:45, and the passing of food starts at 10. Items will be passed hand-to-hand to the Freeport Community Services Food Pantry.

Sponsored by RSU 5 Community Programs, the food drive is a photogenic spectacle that draws in passersby. The food, personal-care products and cleaning supplies are passed from one little hand to another until the line goes down the hill and to Freeport Community Services.

Andrea Harkins, RSU 5 child-care coordinator, said that even parents whose children have left the day care program come back to help with the food drive, year after year.

“That just makes me goose-bumpy,” Harkins said. “Kids at the high school come out to help, and people from the community who don’t have any children at all.”

Harkins said that the line keeps moving, as more people come in with items, or to help. The preschoolers bring items brought in to Morse Street School, or to the RSU 5 Central Office on West Street, or some things that are donated the day of the drive.

“It’s a human chain,” Harkins said. “They walk down with wagons full of stuff and start passing things, bag-to-bag. It is very moving to see people as young as preschool taking part in this.”

Marstaller still teaches Laugh & Learn Preschool at Morse Street School, where the food drive really took root 20 years ago. She learned of the concept as a child growing up in Boothbay, where students were bused into town and businesses joined them in a similar food drive.

“I want children to know, ‘This can be fun,’” she said. “We all stand around and clap our hands and cheer. I started it on Main Street so people can see it.”

The Hand-to-Hand Food Drive always had been held on a Saturday, but was changed to Friday last year, due to a mixup in the notifications. But Friday is fine, she said.

“The children can all be there on a Friday, which is nice,” she said. “It just fills in every year. It’s really fun and it’s not really a lot of work. People cheer, and even the Flag Ladies are coming. People really need the donations. It’s the thing to do.”

Freeport Community Services showed its appreciated for the food drive by featuring a video of Marstaller during the agency’s annual White Nights celebration in January. Melanie Sachs, executive director of Freeport Community Services, said that she brought her own children to the food drive when they were younger.

“It’s a great tradition,” Sachs said. “It’s a tangible way to institute the way of giving to children at an early age. I’ve seen the faces of kids as they connect to the giving. It’s like a lightbulb moment.”

Sachs added that March is a good time for such a food drive because people aren’t necessarily thinking of donating food at this time of year.