Four Kamloops secondary schools compete in a friendly food drive that benefits the food bank

When you’re competing in a food drive being decided by weight, heavy items like juice, jars of pickles, and bulk-size peanut butter are the way to go.

“Valleyview actually challenged all the other high schools and middle schools in Kamloops to the ‘Strive to Win the Drive’ Food Bank Challenge,” Semchuk explains. “It’s kind of a bit of friendly competition to try and generate the most donations as possible. It’s all going to be taken in by weight, that’s how the winner will be determined.”

This year is Westsyde’s first year taking part in the food drive, and they were first on the list for pickup. Not bad for a first effort. Next up, Valleyview Secondary.

“We also get things like crackers and cereal is a big one as well,” Katie McLellan, Grade 12 student at Valleyview explains. “We also asked for toilet paper, paper towels, and toiletries, as well.”

As reigning champions, Valleyview had high hopes for their final total. Judging by the number of students it took just to get the food to the truck to be weighed, they appeared to be in good shape.

On bragging rights: “Definitely, 100%,” McLellan says. “We use it to hold against the other schools. Last year we bragged heavily to Sahali because they beat us the previous year, then we best them.”

That’s a solid segue to the third pickup location. Like many of the other schools, Sahali Secondary offered rewards to students and classes who brought in the largest amount of food.

“We did a hot chocolate day – you come in with your own mug, bring in a non-perishable food item and get hot chocolate for it. We got a lot of food out of that,” Grad Council member Trinity McAlaster explains. “We did blackout bingo with some of the classes, so whoever got the bingo first gets to have a pizza party or donuts, something similar to that.”

South Kam Secondary was the last stop of the day for Darren from the Food Bank. It was another decent haul of non-perishable food. However, the students who organized the efforts at SKSS felt they could have done better.

“I think we did pretty good,” Kailey Smith says. “I definitely think we could have done better,” Chelsea Jones admits.

“We got a lot of food, but I think we could have done better, considering how many kids we have in the school,” Smith says. “It’s kind of disappointing, but we did our best.”

Their best was pretty good. SKSS brought in more than 750 lbs of food, alone. Between the four schools, the food drive raised over 3500 lbs of non-perishable items for the Kamloops Food Bank, which is the real winner of this competition.

“Our opportunity to go out there and pick up from the school and thank them is really important to us,” Wes Graham, Director of Warehouse Operations for the Kamloops Food Bank explains. “These are the future leaders of our community, and showing them if you can share, give, and show kindness, there’s no downside to that.”

While the Food Bank is the big winner, Valleyview Secondary donated a whopping 1694 pounds of food to take the title for a second straight year!

TOTALS:

Westsyde Secondary – 307 lbs
Valleyview Secondary – 1694 lbs
Sahali Secondary – 837 lbs
South Kamloops Secondary – 767 lbs

by Adam Donnelly

Four Kamloops secondary schools compete in a friendly food drive that benefits the food bank

TOTALS:

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