A number of area students are heading out into their communities to collect non-perishable food items for those in need.
Students at West Ferris Secondary School were out collecting donations this week.
“13,000 pounds. Just outstanding,” says Debbie Marson, Executive Director of the North Bay Food Bank on the amount the Trojans collected.
On Wednesday, Oct. 4 École secondaire catholique Algonquin is doing their food drive from 5-7:30 pm while students at St. Joseph-Scollard Hall are bringing in food donations to the school that day.
Marson says Chippewa Secondary School is having a food drive at a later date.
She says as a month-to-month food bank these school food drives are very important for them.
“Having these scheduled annual food drives lets me know I’ve got some supporting coming and we can keep our hampers going to the degree that we want to,” Marson says.
As for specific needs right now, she says it’s everything.
“We’re really looking for those traditional items that you would bring to a food bank as well as some kid’s snacks, breakfast items like cereal, pancake mix, and syrup,” she says. “Our personal hygiene needs are a little bit low. We’re really looking to get everything stockpiled up to really carry us over for the next few months.”
If you’re going to your cupboard right now to see what you can donate, Marson asks that you check the date.
“It’s really important that they know October 2022 and onward is what we can accept,” she says. “Everything else we end up garbaging and then we end up using donor dollars to do garbage dumps.”
École secondaire catholique Franco-Cité’s food drive is Wednesday, Oct. 4 in West Nipissing, with volunteers collecting non-perishable food donations from 4-8 pm.
