Community comes together to feed the hungry for the 2019 Holiday Food Drive
Credit: Sveri May
PeaceJam members pose with food drive haul in the B-wing. Members pictured are Laya Houslander, Carlos Morales-Amates, Melissa Preston, Anna Sankey, Kim Chheu, Tanner Klute, Cecilia Mireles-Caballero, Samantha Schaffer, and Annaliese Bol.
January 28, 2020
Another holiday season means another food drive. Each year, students and faculty at the school get in the holiday spirit by donating non-perishable food to underprivileged families in our community.
This time around, contributors brought the goods. A total of 7,001 items of food were brought in this year, blowing the goal of 5,000 out of the icy December water and setting a new precedent for the annual event.
A tradition of the food drive is the friendly competition between classrooms to get the largest number of food donations. AP history teacher Matthew Porco takes the cake with 1,230 items, followed up by EFE instructor Jim Leander with 1,126 items and the tag team of social studies teacher Ryan Allen and PeaceJam advisor Sveri May with 948 items.
“The heart of what I do is I want students to do it for the right reasons. I want students to do things for other people in the community,” said Porco.
PeaceJam members Tatem Warner (front) and Tanner Klute (back) organize goods collected from the food drive. It’s the responsibility of the PeaceJam club to deliver the food to faculty member’s cars so they can deliver it to community members in need.
Porco also noted that he pushes for students to bring in “real food” instead of whatever is cheapest.
Of course, the Loy Norrix PeaceJam club, led by May, was in charge of organizing the event. The organization offered gift card prizes supplied by local businesses like Cafe Meli, Noodles & Company, Sky Zone, and others to top individual donors in the competition. Cash donations from grocery stores Meijer, Costco, D&W, Hardings, and Sam’s Club were also put toward the drive, contributing 815 items to the total haul. PeaceJam members also collected the food and loaded it into cars for school faculty volunteers to deliver to families over the course of winter break.
“I think that everyone just deserves a piece of food even if they may be struggling to get it,” said junior PeaceJam member Carlos Morales. “I think mostly when people look at Norrix they mostly look at the bad sides of our school, and this will give them a chance to look at the good side.”
It’s times like these that show the caring, familial spirit of Loy Norrix High School. Progressive community members are blazing a path to a future where no family will have to go hungry over long school breaks.
