DECA’s Food Drive: How You Can Make a Difference this Holiday Season

Anyone remember back in elementary school, bringing bags of soup cans, bean cans, fruit cans, and any can you could possibly find to the teacher for a food drive? Why not do that again? Afterall, this year, iUP’s DECA chapter is hosting one right now. 

What’s DECA?

As a quick reminder, this year is the first year of iUP’s DECA chapter; we are in District XII, and Mrs. Province, a CTE teacher, is the sponsor. Moreover, DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) is an organization that strives to educate high school students on careers in hospitality, management, finance, and marketing while hosting in-person and online competitions that can award students scholarships. Additionally, DECA provides numerous community service opportunities. In fact, every DECA district is supposed to hold a community service project for students to participate in each year.

About the Food Drive

District XII will be hosting a food drive as their project. Both members and non-members may participate, and Mrs. Province states that iUP’s chapter is “collecting cans at the iUP headquarters in Grapevine for students that are local to DFW. We have collection boxes available until November 21.” However, since we have “students all over the state, students can donate to any food bank near them.”

Food banks usually accept most shelf-stable food items, but there are always preferred items. This drive’s most needed items are plain peanut butter, canned fruit, not flavored shelf-stable milk, canned tuna, canned chicken, low-sodium canned vegetables, and trail mix. Nonetheless, if students receive or have items that aren’t on the list (that can be found again here), they can still donate them. Keep in mind though, do not donate anything in glass containers as they break easily when being delivered.

Freshman Evelyn has an idea on how Owls can gather more food other than collecting door by door; “You could also encourage either members of DECA, or anybody who will be participating in the food drive at all to spread awareness about it in their neighborhoods (whether that be through an online mention, or flyers or whatever,) then have a smaller drop off for their neighborhoods, where they can then bring it up to headquarters or drop it off at the local shelter to improve the amounts brought in.”

Season of Giving

Since this drive will be running until November 21st, it’s very close to Thanksgiving- a time when coming together is central; therefore, great timing when it comes to help out the less fortunate. Here’s what a few Owls thought about helping the community at this time of year:

Evelyn, a 9th grader, says, “I have always thought that food drives close to thanksgiving is a great way to inflect on all that we have, and be thankful enough of it to help others as well.” Also, “It’s really good to feel like you are doing your part to help others.” Plus, it’s “an easy but helpful community service project.”

Danny Hall, a Junior believes, “DECA hosting a food drive so close to Thanksgiving will ultimately be beneficial because it’s going to give people the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with the food that they want but probably couldn’t have access to otherwise.”

10th grader Arnie Pearce replied, “We live in a very political world right now and I’ve not been one to shy away from that. Right now, connecting with [the] community is more important than ever. … Donating food [that] you may not necessarily need to someone who does [need it] is also community support whether you know the receiver directly or not. It’s a way to reach out and tell people that there’s others out there that see the strength in unity. It says that class is a social construct and that you know we’re all human.”

Community Service

On top of that, this is a great opportunity to catch up on those service hours while participating in our school. Mrs. Province reminds, “If a student submits a photo,” for every 10 items collected “they can earn a community service hour credit!”

Summary

Sounds pretty good, right? DECA’s food drive is an easy, quick way to help out the community in a much needed time- all while getting service hours. So, get collecting; November 21st is the deadline!