Over 250,000 people will suffer from hunger on Long Island at some point this year. More than a quarter of these people will be children under the age of 18. It is this disturbing statistic that has inspired the “Feed 200” initiative at NHS. While this project is new to Northport High School, it’s actually a variation of Sachem School District’s “Feed 2,000.” The goal of what is essentially a giant, school wide Food Drive is to provide 200 struggling families in the community with a “Thanksgiving Dinner.” In order to accomplish this task, 200 boxes will be prepared with a $20 Stop and Shop gift card to purchase a turkey, a variety of ingredients used for traditional Thanksgiving sides, and a dessert. The project is being co-coordinated by the IB Program, Interact Club, and Key Club (and their advisors Mr. Jensen, Mrs. Klein, and Mr. Slagle, respectively). NHS Senior David Kraydman, who is incredibly passionate about this cause, has taken the role of Student Leader for the project. 

Northport has chosen a goal of putting together at least 200 boxes for three reasons. Since this is the first year the project is being run at the High School, the coordinators don’t know how successful the food drive will be. At the end of the collection, there may be more than 200 boxes, but setting a target higher than 200 would be too hopeful. Another reason for a smaller target is due to the fact that the Northport-East Northport School District encompasses a significantly smaller geographic and demographic area than does Sachem. This means that Sachem not only has more families to feed, but more students to contribute donations. Building off the last point, the Northport-East Northport community is very fortunate; many of the students come from families where hunger isn’t a problem. Nevertheless, there are still community members who would appreciate the Thanksgiving meal, thus 200 boxes is a good number.

Due the size of the project, the “coordinating committee” has delegated food and money collections to “student captains.” Any student who attended one of the informational meetings on Wednesday, October 30, could become a captain of a class or club. The job of the captain is to make sure all the items in a box are covered by the class they are captaining, including the $20 gift card. In order to do this, captains can either collect a certain sum of money from each student in the class, by dividing the total cost of all the items in the basket ($45) by the number of students in the class, or have each student bring in a food item from the list and divide the amount of the gift card ($20) by the number of students in the class. While participation in this project is strongly encouraged for those who are financially able to, there is no pressure on those who cannot.

The captains will be busiest during the week of  November 12, when the donations are due and must be sorted. On Tuesday, November 12, the “coordinating committee” along with several captains will stay after school to set up the Commons for collection day. Collection day will be Wednesday, November 13. On this day, students and captains can bring in their donations and place them in their class’s designated box. After school that day, the captains and the “coordinating committee” will meet to sort through the boxes and determine if a second collection day is needed. If that is the case, the setup for the collection day will be after school on Thursday, with the actual collection day taking place on Friday, November 15. Depending on how successful the project is, the Interact and Key Clubs will be holding food drives at Stop and Shop to collect the remaining items needed to complete the goal of 200 boxes.

If one of your classes is putting together a box, consider making a contribution. If none of your classes are, think about bringing a donation in on collection day. It is the least we can do for a community that supports its schools as much as ours does.