From Nov. 9 through Nov. 20, National Honor Society, Student Congress and Agriscience are cooperating to host the annual Thanksgiving Food Drive. Items will be collected in the front of the school in the mornings throughout the week and will ultimately be donated to Ledyard Social Services, which has been the custom for several years, but several changes are altering the usual course of the drive.
This will be the first year that Agriscience provides turkeys to go along with the donated food. “This was really great because it ensured that the families who get food from the food bank are getting quality food,” Student Congress President Hannah Terrapin said.
Further changes come from losing morning meeting. In the past, NHS members have gone to morning meeting classrooms to collect donated items and keep track of who has donated what. Without morning meeting in the schedule, a new system needed to be devised. “We had to completely rethink collection,” Terrapin said.
The solution is to have the items collected in front of the building in the bucket of the Agriscience tractor. The goal is to fill the bucket each day. NHS Adviser Kurt Jannke explained the tractor is supposed to act as advertising as well, reminding parents driving by the front of the school to send food in with their students.
However, competition is also an important aspect. In the past, the morning meeting that donated most won a pizza party. This year, the competition is by class. NHS will have tables set out before school to keep track of donations. At the end of the drive, the class that donated the most will be given a cash prize.
Despite all the modifications to the fundraiser, Jannke expressed that the coordinators are still concerned about how much will be collected and without morning meeting they “anticipate it being more difficult.”
In the past, the donations from Ledyard have amounted to quite a bit and hopefully the tradition will continue with or without the new challenges. “Even though it’s as simple as bringing in a can of green beans or a box of stuffing,” Terrapin said, “when it comes to the end of the drive and all the food is stacked up, it really is staggering to see the difference we, as a school, have made.”

Alex Houdeshell, Assistant Editor in Chief of Horizons

Junior Alex Houdeshell is the Assistant Editor-in-Chief of the 2015-2016 Horizons Yearbook. She is the president of Operation Smile and participates in Cupcakes for Causes. She is on the soccer team and she runs Indoor Track and Track and Field.