The LHS Annual canned-food drive by LHS students and staff provides food for our community and supports families during Thanksgiving.
This is something Leominster High School students do every year.
For almost 20 years the annual canned food drive has been a competition with Fitchburg High School to see who raised the most cans.
It’s a great motivation to get the students involved.
This year, with concerns over EBT cuts causing food insecurity, the drive and the need was bigger than ever.
A lot of teachers participated in this drive, hosting bins in their classrooms for donations. Over 60 bins were filled with canned foods said Advisor and LHS History Teacher, Benjamin Joseph.
Joseph said of EBT cuts, “It should motivate more people to do it this year. It motivated the teachers more. After the EBT cuts, more people are realizing how important the food drive really is. This year it looks like we have much more (donations) than we have had in years.”
In addition to the canned goods, some sports teams also raised money for the canned food drive to bring to the pantry. The LHS Boys Soccer team raised $620. The LHS Girls Volleyball team raised $441 and the LHS Girls Field Hockey team raised both money and cans for the food pantry.
All of the food and funding is being brought to Ruth’s Harvest Food Pantry at the Leominster United Methodist Church. The student volunteer “G.I.V.E” club, run by LHS History teacher Andrea Grimes, takes the food from the high school and transports it to the pantry, where they organize it and hand it out this Saturday, November 22, during the day.
The goal is to send each family home with a basket for Thanksgiving.
Grimes explained cash donations to her and the GIVE club allowed her to purchase over $500 worth of food for the food pantry.
After counting all the cans, Joseph will write the number on the slip and give it to LHS Principal, Dr.Joshua Romano, who will provide the grand total during the Thanksgiving football game, along with the Principal of Fitchburg High School.
After all was counted, Grimes reported, “When I left the pantry on Saturday morning, we had helped almost 150 families get food for the month and for the holiday. In addition, we were able to leave the pantry with a substantial surplus to use in the coming months as well as cash donations from the school and local community.”
Ruth’s Harvest Food Pantry is located at the Leominster United Methodist Church at 77 Hall Street, Leominster.
