Piles and piles of cans fill up boxes and barrels. Vehicles packed to the max. Student volunteers haul cans to Safeway to weigh in.
Cans are donated to our annual food drive, allowing students to give back to the community.
Food for People distributes as many non-perishable foods to the community as possible. They help with CalFresh and have many meals ready in case of emergencies like natural disasters. They operate 23 pantries and help 15% of Humboldt County. They get student leaders, working with Senator Mike McGuire, to take the initiative to gather donations for those in need for the holiday season.
Executive director Carly Robbins has been working with Arcata High School for nine years. During that time, AHS has helped increase the food supply for our community exponentially. To promote donations, McGuire created a competition between schools. In all 9 years, we have seen many creative promotion ideas, which makes the workers at Food for People happy to see the efforts of the schools trying to bring in as many cans as possible. They enjoy seeing students dressed up in food and us incorporating the cans we have into the video.
“Our food drive raises awareness and addresses the issues that are extremely common here,” junior Harper Appy said. “We create a supportive and inclusive community.”
“[Our] impact is in a positive way, only when we actually bring in food,” senior Mayleah Jackson, ASB Treasurer said. “This year is not as good and very disappointing.”
This year leadership tried new strategies that they quickly realized were not working as well. With a lack of communication between the class, after realizing that this was not working as well they quickly had to change the strategy for the competition and saw it starting to work more effectively.
The efforts this year have led to little results. The closer we are to the deadline, the more results we are getting. Every little bit of food counts for making a big impact.
“It goes to 20% of the county to help people who can’t work for themselves like kids in foster care, disabled people, and more,” senior Mason Blair, ASB Vice President said. “[We] help them get back on their feet.”
Most students are very fortunate to have families and money to pay for every meal. This is not always the case and doing this is very special and such an honor to do. This is such a good way for us to give back to our community and it’s important that when we get the chance to give back to the community we do. “This food drive is truly so impactful to our community,” senior Andrea Merezko said. “Sometimes we don’t realize that everyone has to eat, and many people rely on this and how important it is to them.”
