Bank of North Georgia and Bank of Coweta, divisions of Synovus Bank, collected 8,782 jars of peanut butter, 12,227 pounds worth, enough to make 97,818 sandwiches.

The fifth annual "Spread the Love" peanut butter and jelly food drive will benefit 37 food pantries in the banks' local communities.

Locally, the East Covington branch of Bank of North Georgia, in combination with Porterdale Elementary, collected 55 cars of creamy peanut butter, 11 jars of crunchy peanut butter and 59 jars of jelly, including 52 grape, five strawberry and one other.

The Newton Plaza location collected 39 jars of creamy peanut butter and seven crunchy, in addition to 30 jars of grape jelly, 21 jars of strawberry jelly and four others.

Combined the two locations collected 255 jars, totaling 6,065.7 ounces.

"The challenging economy has caused more and more families to reach out to local food banks for assistance and we felt compelled to take action," said Don Howard, Synovus Regional CEO. "Our team has a genuine soft-spot for kids and we want to be sure they have the nutritious food they need to get through the day energized and excited to learn. Inviting our local school partners to join in the collection effort proved we can make a tremendous impact when we work together to support a worthy cause."