By Heather Dove

Online Editor

Starting last Thursday, students were asked to give food to the Holiday Food Drive organized by Service Club.

The process starts when Dean Pat Tedaldi-Monti supplies the service club with cardboard boxes.  Then, the service club sends out a single cardboard box to every classroom around the school.  Some of the rooms may not have gotten boxes, but that was the only complication thus far.

Next, students and teachers will work to fill the boxes with canned goods.

“In some classes, kids will bring in their own items, other classes will collect money and one kid will go out and buy the food,” Service Club Coordinator David Jacobson said.

Once the food has been gathered and collected, on November 10th, all of the second hour classes will take their food, in its box, to the commons.

The week following, the service executive board will meet to pack the boxes of food and  use a school bus to deliver  the to the food pantry at the Mount Prospect Village hall.

From there, service club will get volunteers for the week before Thanksgiving.  Based on a list of 100 families that the village hall provides, the volunteers will go around and pack food for the families. With a list of families that includes the number of family members, the volunteers will distribute food, in bags, to each family.

“Each family, depending on how much food they have in a bag, will get around three to four bags of food.” Jacobson said.

Around Thanksgiving, the families will then come in and pick up their food.

After running all 18 years of the food drive Jacobson’s goal has been to receive 5,000 items.

To reach this goal  the jump would have to be “huge“ from last year’s total count of 3,000 items, but Jacobson said, “hopefully we’ll put some announcements on, and teachers will help get students into it.”

Another reason for students to contribute to the food drive, is the prize the winning class gets. The winners will receive a free breakfast, made up of food like donuts and bagels, according to Jacobson.

Although there is a prize, Jacobson doesn’t think it’s all about the prize.

“I think it’s about 50-50,” Jacobson said, “Some people give food just because it’s the right thing to do, other people need a little extra incentive.”