The food drive started in October and was led by the Ambassador Club. The purpose of the food drive is to help people in need by giving members of the community an opportunity to donate food and items to people who need them.
Some ambassadors that are in the food drive are also in volunteer clubs like Beta Club and Key Club. They are able to get volunteer hours for bringing food and supplies to donate.
Valeria Gamarra is a junior who is in Ambassador Club for her first year.
“I wanted to help the community, I would recommend to people to definitely try. It’s a great opportunity to gain hours for a club and to help our community,” Gamarra said.
Anybody can donate, everything that was donated went to the Real Life Center in Tyrone. Lead counselor Lisa Love is the leader of the food drive. The food drive takes place every Oct.
“The food drive has been at McIntosh for several years, at least five years,” Love said.
Shortages on food have led to an extension of the food drive this year.
“Because we’ve heard that they, [Real Life Center], are really low on a lot of supplies, we just carried [the food drive] over to November,” Love said.
There are many types of items that can be donated to the Real Life Center.
“For example, canned foods, crackers, dried foods, beans, peas, jars [of goods] like peanut butter, jam, boxed potatoes, stuffing, soup, baby food and also if they need toiletry materials like body wash and shampoo, cleaning supplies [and] paper towels,” Lisa Love said.
The food collected also went to Mount Zion Methodist church in Atlanta, which focused on feeding specific families in the Atlanta area.
Driola Hoti is a senior and she joined the Ambassador Club to help others.
“This year there were 123 students who were part of the food drive. Junior Sara Hoti is the Vice President of Ambassador Club. The food drive was successful, according to Hoti, and participation was regular. The food drive ended on Nov. 21.
“It ended on a great note with several full boxes, and we were able to meet our goal for the drive. We definitely received a lot of donations, especially in the last few days, and the support from students was amazing. Based on how successful it was, I do think extending the Food Drive like this again in the future would be worthwhile. It gave people more time to donate and helped us collect much more overall,” Hoti said.
