The student council at St. Mary Catholic Community School in Crown Point has been hard at work since Thanksgiving preparing for their annual food drive. The food drive has collected over 18,000 items in the past two years.
This year, student council president Lauren Garcia wanted to mix it up a bit. Her plan was to raise as much spare change as possible so the student council could shop and really have a choice in the types of food brought in. The student council decided to host a “Penny War” challenge. Each class brought in silver change for their homerooms, and took pennies to the other classes to lower their total raised by one cent for every penny.
Garcia hoped to raise a couple hundred dollars so each member of student council could go shopping and pick up a few things. The final total ended up being just shy of $2,600. Each member of student council set out to shop with almost $300 each. When asked about the result of the penny war, Garcia commented, “I’m so happy with how the penny war turned out. I’d like to thank everyone that helped out, including our student council officers and class reps for all of their hard work.” Dillan Mori, student council vice-president, also added, “Shopping for the food was an awesome experience. I’m so glad we got to help as many families as possible.”
The food drive will benefit St. Mary’s own food pantry as well as the food pantry with Catholic Charities in Gary. Student Council Advisors Jim Tucker, Jen Mori, and Theresa Mcloughlin would like to extend a special thank you to Members Source Credit Union in Merrillville for sorting, bagging, and counting the massive amount of change at no cost to the food drive and Target Truck Rentals in Schererville for use of a box truck to deliver the food. Next week students from St. Mary’s will travel to the Catholic Charities office in Gary to make their annual food delivery.