By Sara Ballenger
Students at Loyola School in Los Altos are in the giving spirit. The student council organized a schoolwide Thanksgiving food drive Oct. 28-Nov. 2.
“We took a unique approach this year,” said Principal Linda Eckols. “Every grade was given a part of the (traditional Thanksgiving) meal to bring in and our sixth-graders were asked to bring in $1, to go towards turkey certificates from Safeway.”
Teachers asked students to bring in canned fruits, drinks, canned vegetables, boxed potatoes or rice, stuffing, gravy, cranberries and desserts.
Eckols estimated about 15 boxes of food have been collected, including eight $25 certificates for turkey.
The food will go to a clearing house to be assembled into baskets containing a complete Thanksgiving meal including dessert, said Jennifer Steed, a sixth-grade teacher and student council advisor. All of the donated food will go to Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Second Harvest also accepts money.
“Food drives account for 45 percent of our food donations a year. It’s a big part of our fund raising. We use the food year-round,” said Carlene Schmidt, community events manager at Second Harvest. “We serve an average of 120,735 people a month. We distributed 23.8 million pounds of food last year.”
Second Harvest works with 618 agencies in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties which distribute the food, Schmidt said.
“As part of our holiday food drive, we are hoping to raise 2 million pounds of food, $3.5 million to purchase and distribute food and 20,000 turkeys and chickens,” Schmidt said. “We can stretch $1 donated to $10.34 in food. That’s the kind of purchasing power we have from buying in bulk.”
Loyola students said they are happy to help out.
“I think its really cool because all of the kids get to help out and we are helping lots of people,” said Jerrica Fritzley, sixth-grade publicity officer of the student council. “We’ve gotten a lot of food, more than we expected. It would be really nice if we could get other schools to help, too.”
“We will pickup and drop-off barrels that hold about an average of 125 pounds of food to your business, school or office,” Schmidt said. “We also have public drop-off locations.”
Fritzley feels thankful this holiday season.
“I think some people take food for granted a lot,” she said. “It really makes you think about it.”
Eckols agrees.
“I think this is another example, despite everything that is going on, of people being grateful of their own situation,” Eckols said, “but, to also have empathy for what’s happening for others across the nation.”
Second Harvest Food Bank has public drop-off sites at all Bay Area Safeway, Albertson’s, Long’s Drugs and public libraries. For more information, or to begin a food drive, call Second Harvest Food Bank at, 1-800-870-3663.
