As many continue to face hardships due to the coronavirus, some have been lacking the ability to feed themselves properly. To help those in distress, the students from the Academy of Science and Medicine at Crescenta Valley High School prepared a drive-thru food drive event to gather food to hand out to these people in need.
On Saturday September 19, the Academy of Science and Medicine held their first drive-thru food drive at Tujunga United Methodist Church. The Tujunga United Methodist Church is the home of the Bailey Human Care Center, which is a free community outreach program that provides service to the local community. The Bailey Human Care Center has been helping those around them since 1981, and one of the main tasks they perform is handing out food to people in the community. For this program to have more of an impact on a greater level, they needed a helping hand in collecting the food to hand out to all of the people that came by to the center to pick up food. Therefore, the Academy of Science and Medicine designed a safe drive-thru food drive in which members of the Academy, or anyone in the community, could donate food.
The drive-thru program was designed in a way so that people would not have to leave their cars to donate food. To prepare for this event, volunteers arrived at the church thirty minutes early to set up tables, carts, canopies, and chairs that would help to easily collect food that was donated. Another aspect that was emphasized was the importance of the safety of the donors and volunteers. To make sure everyone was safe and healthy, all volunteers and donors were required to wear masks and gloves.
Publicizing this event to the whole community was a crucial step to the success of gathering a great amount of food. This drive-thru food event was publicized in the local newspaper, on the Academy’s website, and several social media platforms. Many who saw the promotion of this event attended the drive-thru food drive with one, two, or even three full bags of food. Some of the food that people donated included canned food, cereal, rice, dry beans, tomato sauce, spaghetti, crackers, granola bars, and even fresh fruit and vegetables. The purpose of gathering the food on the carts was to bring the food right up to the pantry where separate volunteers of the Bailey Center would organize the goods based on its type. There were even refrigerators to hold the fruits and vegetables that could parish.
From the great support of the community we were able to collect over sixty full bags of food. As a member of the leadership committee of the Academy of Science and Medicine myself, “I believe that our first event of holding a drive-thru food drive was very successful and a great choice that we had made. It was very nice to see the support of lots of people donating food for others in need.”
Every Wednesday, from eleven in the morning to noon, the collected food is passed out to people in need. The students that are part of the leadership committee in the Academy of Science look forward to continuing to promote and hold events like this food drive to help out people from the community during these hard times.
