Belmont secondary students are getting ready to hit the pavement and knock on doors to make sure no one in the community gets overlooked.
The school’s annual food drive, 10,000 Tonight, which traditionally takes place around Christmastime, is getting a spring revival this year. Belmont students are partnering with their Sooke counterparts at Edward Milne Community School to canvas their communities for non-perishable food items to donate to the local food banks.
The Belmont students will be blanketing the West Shore on Thursday night (April 21), with their collected items earmarked for the Goldstream Food Bank.
“We heard the food bank usually gets empty this time of year,” said Emily Rasmussen.
Shauna Stubbs added, “We wanted to make sure the food bank has food all year.”
Rasmussen and Stubbs, along with Graeme Sieben and Markus Meyer, are Grade 10 Belmont leadership students helping organize this week’s food drive, which will look a little different than past efforts.
Instead of just accepting donations one night, there are bins set up inside the main entrance for students and staff at the schools, as well as the community, to drop items off all week. The goal is for Belmont students alone to collect more than 10,000 items.
“It’s really important to show the community that as a school we’re here to support everyone,” Stubbs said.
While there is a goal, Rasmussen added, the drive is really about collecting as much food as possible for the food bank.
With the big push on Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m., Sieben said students will be out across all of the major communities in the West Shore. The school itself will be buzzing during this high-energy event and keeping that energy going is why he’s back volunteering.
Meyer said that energy and this food drive in particular “brings the school together … The entire community rallies behind it.” If residents know they’re not going to be home, he added, they can leave items to be collected at their door.
Said Stubbs: “We really appreciate any donations … Even one can of food helps.”
katie@goldstreamgazette.com