Countless families will be missing meals and going hungry this holiday season.
Carlmont is stepping up to make a positive impact on the lives of families in need. Up until Nov. 25, all non-perishable food can be donated on campus for San Mateo’s Second Harvest Food Bank and Carlmont families in need.
Students see this service project as an opportunity to step into the shoes of the less fortunate and help them out.
“It would be really hard to come home from work or school and not have anything to eat. It’s important to help the less fortunate in our community to obtain essentials,” said junior Madison Norman. “The food drive is a nice way to reach out to people who need our help. We can all do our part by participating.”
Supervisor Bita Shahrvini from Carlmont’s Associated Student Body (ASB) Human Relations commission is confident that the food drive will be a success when “the student body chooses to participate in it and the teachers promote it in their classes. We are going to put up a bunch of flyers, posters, make announcements about it, and ask teachers to talk to their classes about it. Since homecoming was last week, we didn’t have a chance to do it yet.”
According to Shahrvini, “The top three classes each get a pizza party, so that’s an incentive.”
Human Relations Commissioner Mathilde Zanelly said that teachers will be asked to “give extra credit, because that’s one of the biggest incentives for the food drive. We have to think of what really motivates students other than the kindness of their hearts.”
Human Relations’ current progress on the food drive is “making flyers and trying to get everyone to be aware of the dates,” said Zanelly.
Carlmont junior Monee McGrady said, “The food drive teaches students important values and gets them thinking. We are definitely making a difference because there are so many families that benefit from things like this.”
ASB Advisor Jim Kelly estimated that in previous years “around 100 families would get two bags of groceries. It was something crazy like that.”
In regard to what has made previous food drives successful, Kelly said, “It’s not just ASB. All ASB does is promote it and collect it and sort it. It’s the school. The students are the ones who deserve all the credit, and also the teachers that allow the non-perishable items to be gathered in their classrooms. If you’re going to give credit, give credit to the students of Carlmont who make it happen.”
Whether students are overwhelmed with school, sports, or other matters of life, lending a hand this holiday season is as simple as donating a can of food.
