At Seaquam Secondary, the final push is on to give at least 15 families a food hamper before the start of Spring Break. The initiative started as a response to our community’s financial difficulties caused by COVID pandemic. As one of our grade 12 students, Kate Dusanj, explains: “In a time where more families are struggling to survive than ever, we at Seaquam have taken it upon ourselves to do whatever we can to help.”
The food drive, which is being organized by Seaquam’s Delta Youth Advisory Council (DYAC) students, has been running since February 1 and ends this Friday, March 5. The students were hoping to collect more than 1,500 food items and that goal has already been reached. Another grade 12 DYAC member, Joshua Bauman, said: “We are especially happy with the turnout of donations and encourage everyone to donate in the coming week.”
DYAC students will continue to sort the items into food hampers and deliver them to local families that are struggling financially during this challenging time. The overall learning experience around this event has been very positive for our school community.
“Putting together these hampers has given us perspective of how people can be struggling without anyone knowing,” explained Liam Birt, while Taylor Kelly added: “It’s inspiring that we can help our families in communities.”
With an increased need for food supplies, Seaquam will continue to collect non-perishable food items until the end of this week. “The more items we can collect, the better as it will enable us to help even more families experiencing food vulnerability,” said Emma Tait, Grade 12 student. “We would welcome any additional donations from our local community.”
If you have non-perishable food items that you would like to donate, you can drop them off at the main school entrance between 8am and 3pm any day this week. In order to minimize visitors to our building, a donation container will be placed in front of our school for our community members to drop their donations off.