Over the past few weeks, Park City residents have likely seen students outside The Market, Smith’s, Fresh Market and Macey’s collecting donations. With more than 70,000 pounds of food collected, their hard work paid off.
Last year, the school's Honor Society food drive collected 56,000 pounds of food. This year, students wanted to surpass that with a goal of 75,000 pounds.
Noah Canada is the president of the Park City High School National Honor Society. He said donations started out slow, so they dropped the goal to 60,000 pounds of food, still working to exceed last year’s collection.
“But then in the last two weeks, our students just really came together and made the food drive exceptional,” Canada said.
Most donations came from shoppers at local grocery stores. Canada said the Honor Society’s 150 members were assigned 2-hour shifts at stores to engage the community.
“It's one of my favorite things to do," he said. "I and the other board members try to be at every shift because it's just so much fun and so beautiful to see the generosity of our community.”
One student collected over 100 bags of food in a single grocery shift.
Canada said those shifts also raised more than $10,000. The money was used to buy bulk food items to include in the donation.
All donations are sent to the Christian Center’s food pantries in Park City and Heber City and the Park City Peace House.
“The Christian Center actually purchased a warehouse this year, because we provided them with so much food last year," Canada said. "We were able to fill their entire Park City food pantry and their entire warehouse.”
The Christian Center of Park City expressed its appreciation on Instagram, saying the food drive “already made a substantial impact in the community.”
The students also launched a Hunger Games-themed competition to encourage donations. Canada said Ms. Taylor's band class and Ms. Hooker’s English class tied for first. They had some students spend over 15 hours in front of grocery stores. Ms. Waller's physics class came in second place.
“We also appreciate the work that every class did, because sometimes it's a little bit more difficult if the class is smaller, or if the students in that class had busier schedules,” Canada said.
The class winners get to celebrate with a pizza or donut party and the winning students will get gift cards.
The Honor Society will be back at it next year, with hopes to set a new collection record with its 2024 food drive to help the community all year long.
