Photo provided Andi Carothers helping sort food donations during last year’s Columbus North High School Student Assembly can drive.
The Columbus North High School Student Assembly is getting ready to begin accepting donations as part of its annual Can Drive, benefiting BCSC families who are food insecure.
The work the assembly did last year resulted in more than 11,000 non-perishable food donations, which went to feed over 120 BCSC families, said Leo Iorio, senior class treasurer and president of the Can Drive.
From Nov. 7 through Dec. 18, student assembly members will go door-to-door throughout the community to compile donations.
Students will go door-to-door every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, leaving door-hangers equipped with general information about the drive, which aims to collect non-perishable food donations to provide them directly to BCSC families in need during the holiday season.
Door-hangers will specify a designated time for when student assembly members will return to a given house to collect canned goods placed on the doorstep for collection.
During the Can Drive event itself on Dec. 19, students will organize all donations and prepare them for delivery. Iorio said that they create boxes that have an equal number of things like vegetables, fruits and bread, for example, along with a type of protein. BCSC employees, with the help of North alumni, then take students to deliver the boxes to food insecure BCSC families.
The student assembly is accepting monetary donations as well on the Can Drive’s GoFundMe page. Those donations will be used to cover the purchase of types of food the Can Drive is short on.
Iorio— who has been involved with the Can Drive each of his years at North— noted peanut butter is an item they typically end up needing more of during the drive.
Student assembly members are also planning to incorporate drop sites where community members can donate goods and some Dine To Donate nights with local businesses like Noodles & Company, Jaggers and HotBox Pizza, with details to come later.
“You’re working for pretty much two months and you have that moment where all that works comes together and you can just see the look on these people’s faces when you deliver to them— it’s really special,” Iorio said.
