A group of students at a city high school are working to give local food banks a boost.
Superior Collegiate and Vocational Institute students are in the midst of their Harvesting Hope food drive, an annual initiative to provide donations to the Thunder Bay Regional Food Distribution Association.
Teacher supervisor Tricia Cibinel estimates this year’s group will have raised more than $35,000 through their efforts. She said the focus behind the project is getting students involved.
“The whole idea behind this is character education,” Cibinel said on Sunday at the Intercity Shopping Centre, where the group has built pieces of art that incorporate the non-perishable donations.
“We want the students to understand the issues in our community and then give them the power to help out our community in a meaningful away. A lot of our students get into that and they enjoy helping out and they can empathize with people that haven’t got enough to eat.”
Preparations for the event begin at the commencement of the school year where there is an awareness campaign to inform students of the drive.
The push continues into October with visits to classes and challenges to help encourage student involvement.
Flyers are sent out at the end of the month to area residences, and then on Halloween night students go door-to-door collecting donations.
The fundraiser originated back at the former Hillcrest High School before being carried over to Superior. Now in its sixth run, Cibinel said the voluntary involvement has increasingly grown every year.
“This year we had more than 200 volunteers come out. We start in September explaining to students what the issue of hunger and poverty is in Thunder Bay, so we bring in the RFDA and they explain what’s going on.”
In addition to the student volunteers, the drive received assistance from Lakehead University education students as well as the Holy Family Church Youth Group.
Tamara Albanese, a Grade 12 student at Superior, is in her second time volunteering and said it is a rewarding experience.
“Helping people feels good,” she shared. “We get food from 9,000 houses, so that’s a lot of food.”
The students have a display set up in the food court of the mall where they built food sculptures to depict a farm house with a pumpkin to create a harvest motif.
They are accepting both cash and non-perishable food donations at the mall.
Setting up in such a high-traffic location allows the students to take pride in their accomplishments.
“This is the youth in our community, and we need to show there is a lot of effort that goes into this,” Cibinel explained. “There is a lot of change young people can make, and they care.”
