Students' efforts help feed the hungry

Three days before the deadline for the annual Thanksgiving food drive at Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons School in Schenectady, the competition was reaching a fever pitch.

Last Wednesday, Christina Hannah's senior class homeroom held the lead with 160 cans of food collected.

But the other senior class was creeping up -- with plans to collect money and go on a supermarket spree.

Rewards

"People say, 'Oooh, we get a pizza party,'" said Christina, 17, one of the organizers of the drive. "I say, 'Don't think of it just as that. Think of it as helping people.' It's our quote: 'To get the thanks, you gotta do the giving.'"

Every holiday season, the peer ministers at the school sponsor collections, service projects and volunteer fundraisers to aid Schenectady charities in feeding the poorer residents of the city.

Schenectady Inner City Ministry, an ecumenical group, will benefit from this year's Thanksgiving collection, which numbered 3,272 cans of food when the drive closed last Friday.

Game theory

When Kathleen Duff, campus minister, put out a call for volunteers, Christina and her classmate, Maria Mancino, stepped up and decided to infuse new life into the traditional collection by making it into a game. They offered a free pizza party to the homeroom that collected the most food items.

Christina and Maria set up donation boxes to display the homerooms' gifts, and decorated the area outside the main office with turkeys, table covers and other images of the season.

They also posted flyers, put up a leader board, promoted the event to their friends and classmates, and made a circuit of each homeroom every morning to tally the receipts.

"We wanted to do it to make people say, 'They're working hard; maybe we should, too,'" said Christina. "I'm really happy with the results."

Can-do spirit

The students, Christina noted, didn't stop at looking in their home cupboards for items to give. They also thought up creative ways to raise money to purchase food or gave up little luxuries to donate funds.

She is proud of both the "hundreds" of cans stacked up in the school's hallways and the way teens are starting to pay more attention to the problem of poverty and to possible solutions.

"I'm really happy at the result we have and how much people are going to have to eat," she declared.

Delivery day

This week, Christina, a parishioner of St. Luke's Church in Schenectady, will carpool with around 40 other members of the senior class to bring full Thanksgiving meals to homebound neighbors.

That won't be her first service effort. Christina has helped raise money to donate to victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami and also serves as a Eucharistic minister at school Masses. She is also captain of the school's cheer-leading squad and is planning on getting involved with the Christmas toy drive.

"Everybody doesn't have a life like us," she said of her involvement. "It's important we realize [people]'s needs, and there's definitely a lot this year."

(11/23/06) [[In-content Ad]]