The annual SCA food drive started up in November and set the tone for the season of giving. This school year, Riverbend High School is participating in the canned goods food drive. Every year, Riverbend tries to give back to the community as much as they can by donating to different causes throughout several locations in the county.
Ms. Esposito one of the organizers of this event stated, “We are hoping to give back to the community by providing food for meals this holiday season and through the winter.” How the school has it set up every B5 class will bring as many canned goods as possible. Whichever class brings in the most will receive a Chick-Fil-A breakfast. The reason this is so popular here at Riverbend is because students think around this time of the year it is great to give than to receive.
The food drive really focuses on giving back to less fortunate people here in the community. Senior Victoria Coefield, a member of the food drive said, “SCA officers feel that no one should be hungry during the holidays.” About 300,000 children here in Virginia don’t have a meal to go home to on a daily basis. The Vice President of this year’s fall food drive, junior Zach Fletcher, stated “Food is a necessity that everyone should have and at the minimum we should do what we can to provide the members of our community with this basic necessity.”
The SCA is accumulating cans by getting kids to bring them into their B5 classes. Ms. Esposito said “Donating food is a small and easy way for our student body to show that we care about our neighbors and members of our community.” If every student just brought in even just one that would be over two thousand cans and that would make a huge difference around the community. If every student could bring in at least four to five that would help immensely. Last school year, Riverbend accumulated over 1,000 cans. Last year was our first year with this organization SEC (Spotsylvania Emergency Concern) and 1,000 is a good start to get, and Riverbend is going to try to get those numbers to rise in future years. Ms. Esposito said, “We have found that competition between teachers and their respective B5 classes goes a long way in motivating the students to donate. Feel free to get a friendly competition going between you and a neighboring teacher.” Whichever B5 class brings the most cans in enjoys a hot breakfast from Chick-Fil-A.
In this years Fall food drive the winner was Mr. Wessel’s B5 class with 676 cans. In second place, it was Mrs. Collier’s class with 287 canned goods, and in third, it was Mrs. Faulkner’s with 225. As a school, we collected 1,493 canned goods this Fall.