Every year before Thanksgiving break, Trinity helps the community by donating thousands of cans to charities. The senior class student council urges advisers and students to bring in cans to surpass last year’s total. Although, students are focused on building the best designs for prizes like casual days, it is important to acknowledge the issue at hand—providing meals for underprivileged families.
“We are just trying to get as many cans as possible,” senior Carolyn Lightsey said. “We discussed encouraging advisors matching their advisees can numbers. We are trying to get as many cans as possible for as many people.”
The Canstruction contest took place on Nov. 15, and Second Harvest picked up the items on Nov. 17. The senior class took an initiative by organizing the food drive as well as encour-aging other students to either bring in cans or monetary donations.
“As seniors, we are tasked with leading by example.” senior Sam Dimaio said. “I am not a part of student council, but my advisory was picked to make the Canstruction announcement so I did. Other than that, I participated by bringing in cans.”
Since the food drive took place before Thanksgiving, canned meals including traditional foods like yams and corn are essential to the com-munity that Second Harvest serves through their donations. “Any non-perishable items are great to bring in,” Dimaio said. “Some advisories color coordinate in order to cater to their creative sculpture, but honestly I doubt the people going to Second Harvest would rather have 500 cans of tomato paste instead of a variety of foods to choose from. So essentially, I’d say it’s better to bring in a whole host of items to provide variety and options.”
Due to the senior class’s involvement and organization, the 2017 Canstruc-tion drive was very successful and was able to pass last year’s total—8,628 items weighing in at 9,438 lbs. This year’s drive was able to provide 700 meals to the English Estates Elemen-tary School and 6817 meals to Second Harvest by collecting a total of 10,022 items.
“Different types of charities including Catholic charities get their food from Second Harvest,” Guidance Counselor Christine Hempsted said. “English Estates Elementary School runs a program similar to Bread and Backpacks, so the cans sent there help children and organizations with their free and reduced lunch program. Homeless shelters like Coalition For the Homeless look for meals in a can like a jar of ravioli or beef stew high in protein and easy to eat.”
The Canstruction Contest was started in 2008 and has collected more than 50,000 items. After more than ten years, significant changes have been made in order to make the Canstruction contest more efficient.
“In past years, we have changed which grades compete in the contest since we allow them to decide whether they participate in Canstruction or in Adopt-a-Family,” Hempsted said. “In 2015, we had over 13,000 items because 8th grade participated. So, each year is a little bit different from the last in regards to which grades participate and what drives are [conducted].”
Since the drive is inconveniently placed before the Toys for Tots, administrators make sure that the student body isn’t overwhelmed with pressuring donations. Therefore, students are not obliged to bring cans if they are not able to.
“We put such a huge emphasis on the food drive, so we try to be cognoscent on how our families at Trinity are,” Hempsted said. “The ultimate goal of [these drives] is to give back to the community and give help to people who need it most. We are blessed to come to this great place and so it is an effort to help those who are less fortunate. We as a school have the ability to help so we should.”
