It may have only taken two weeks to organize and execute, but the food collected during Lakeland Christian Academy’s fourth annual food drive for Combined Community Services will provide meals for less fortunate Kosciusko County families through November.
In 2010, the food drive collected more than $33,000 in food for CCS.
Wednesday, according to Peggi Lisenbee-Wright, CCS, 1,352 bags of food were collected. That is slightly less than the number of bags collected in 2010, but the bags were fuller this year, she said.
Lori Widman, LCA development coordinator, said students delivered 4,000 grocery bags in the Warsaw and Winona Lake areas Monday. The bags were donated by Martin’s Supermarket. Attached to each bag was a flyer about LCA’s annual food drive, asking for non-perishable food items.
She said the food drive was a school-wide organization that started two weeks ago.
“Just a big push from the school,” Widman said.
“The bounty we are collecting from the community overwhelms me every year,” she said.
The Warsaw Parks Department donated picnic tables for the school to use to sort the food once it got to CCS. Students sort, organized and boxed the food, then put it away so CCS employees didn’t have to do any of the work.
CCS Emergency Services Coordinator Christie Beldon said, “CCS looks forward to the Lakeland food drive every year. It’s such a big help to us.”
Until the food drive this week, Beldon said, the cupboards have been almost bare.
“It’s awesome to see the community and the school come together. Their efforts in organizing this saves us so much work,” Beldon said. “The food drive means we can give people more and a variety. It’s sad when we can only give our clients one bag of food because we don’t have much. After this food drive, we can give them a decent amount.
“We want to thank the students and the community that reached out to us,” Beldon concluded.
Students saw the importance of the work they were doing.
“It really is important because we are really helping out our community a lot and it really impacts our community,” said Naomi Caron, junior.
Kyle Essick, junior, said, “It gives food to those who are disadvantaged. It’s great being here for those.”
Essick said he was impressed with the amount of food they raised.
“There’s a whole lot and we only collected food for a day and a half,” Essick said.
“We collected a lot,” agreed junior Calvin Prinsen. “We got probably a fourth of the houses that gave us food.”
In his fourth year of participating in the food drive, Prinsen said they seem to be collecting more each year.
“It shows we are the hands and feet of Jesus and helping people out,” he said.
In her first year with the food drive, teacher Aleah Lee praised the students’ work.
“They’ve been taking this food drive and making it their own. They’ve really taken ownership of what they need to do,” Lee said.
“I think it helps out a lot of people here,” said sophomore Chris Silveus. “I think it makes a big impact.”
Having participated in the food drive every year, Silveus said, “I think every year we get more and more. I think this year we got the most.”
Neighborhoods LCA visited Wednesday to collect donations included the Town of Winona Lake, Stone Camp, Lamppost, Stonehenge, Lexington, Heritage Lake, The Dells, River Lawn, Valley Springs, Blackberry Trace, Summerfield, The Meadows, Deerwood Park, Brookshire, Ferguson Road, Pheasant Ridge, Granite Ridge, Patterson Place, Deeds Creek Manor, Deeds Creek, Bibler Addition, Southtown Estates, Wildwood Estates, Country Garden Estates, Woodfield Manor, Southbrook Park, Packerton Road, Cherry Creek, Autumn Ridge, Barrington, Old Farm, Fox Run, The Pines, North Winds, Lake Forest, Timber Ridge, Hunters Ridge, Hickory Estates, Shadow Lakes, Harrison Landing and Willies East Ridge Addition.
Lunch was provided for the students by Golden Corral, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Marsh, Owen’s and Richards.
CCS Executive Director Stephen Possell said, “We always appreciate donations. A lot of schools help us out. They really do a great job. The kids are always upbeat and positive. It’s really well organized this year.”
