Canned food drive results announced

The SGA announced today that it collected about 1,950 pounds in donations during its annual food drive. Social studies teacher Marc Grossman's first period class contributed the greatest amount, followed by Brook Franceschini's class in second place and Bertina Williams's class in third place. Each winning class will be rewarded with a pizza luncheon on Wednesday.

The event began on Nov. 30 and continued through Dec. 18. The SGA encouraged students to bring in non-perishable canned and boxed food items to their first period classes. This year, the majority of donations went to Manna Food, a Montgomery County-based nonprofit food center.

The SGA originally intended to finalize the results of the drive before winter break, but school cancellations due to snow on Dec. 21 - 23 made it impossible to drop off the donations and determine the winners until the first week in January. Sophomore Rose Kalala, who was in charge of organizing the drive, praised the SGA's speedy delivery of food donations despite the unexpected schedule changes. "It might have been better to get the food out to the needy families during the holidays as opposed to after," Kalala said. "But it didn't cause any major problems."

The SGA also received many perishable items that could not be donated to Manna Food; as an alternative, the SGA decided to give these items to Blair's Smart Sacks, a club that assembles packages of food and delivers them to needy students in the area. "Things like Chewy bars, etc., are all perishable so we gave them to Smart Sacks so they could get out to people faster,"SGA Vice President Adam Biru explained.

Kalala did note that there was a lack of enthusiasm for the drive among Blazers. "We definitely could have gotten more donations because Blair has such a big population," she said. Kalala also acknowledged that more substantial efforts to raise awareness would have made a difference. "There should have been more advertisement," she said. This year's results were still a large increase over the 880 pounds of food donated last year, according to SGA President Alex Bae.

Most SGA members were pleased with the level of Blazer participation in the drive. "It was great for what it was," said sophomore Caryne Moses, who was responsible for collecting boxes. "It will benefit a lot of families and children." Biru maintained that the overall goal of the drive was met. "Every chance we get to help the community is a success," he said.