Over the past few weeks, Northport High School students participated in the Interact and Key Clubs’ second annual Feed 200 initiative. Modeled off of Sachem Central School District’s Feed 2,000 program, Northport High School’s Feed 200 project seeks to provide Thanksgiving dinners to 200 food-insecure families in the local community.

To accomplish their goal, Feed 200 invites Northport High School students to ‘captain’ a class, club, sports team, friend group, or family. As a ‘captain’, students are responsible for ensuring the collection of the items needed to put together a Thanksgiving dinner box. These items consist of typical Thanksgiving dinner items, such as stuffing, gravy, and mashed potatoes. Each box also includes a $20 gift card to a local grocery store to cover the cost of a turkey.

Captains also encourage the members of the group which they are captaining to participate in the initiative by speaking to their class, club, or team about the importance of the initiative. Some captains have each group member donate a specific food item and a set quantity of money to be put towards the gift card, while other Captains ask group members to bring in a set quantity of money which the captain will use to buy the food and gift card. Oftentimes, the teacher of the class, the adviser of the club, or the coach of the sports team will contribute the gift card. Importantly, and in the spirit of the initiative, no one is pressured to donate.

Mrs. Brittany Klein of the Interact Club and Mr. Bill Slagle of the Key Club were the faculty advisers for Northport High School’s second annual Feed 200, and seniors Camden Burk and Ryan Inzerillo took leadership roles in the initiative.

The Northport High School chapter of the National Honor Society (NHS) also played a large role in the initiative. Through the efforts of its members, NHS put together more than 70 complete boxes, and contributed more than 50 gift cards to the initiative.

Throughout the weeks of November 9 and November 16, captains and other participants placed their complete boxes — and additional donations — at the collection space on the balcony in the Commons. From there, Mrs. Klein, Mr. Slagle, Camden, Ryan, and several other student volunteers sorted the donations and made sure that each box included the necessary items and a gift card.

In total, Feed 200 put together 150 Thanksgiving dinner boxes — more than needed to meet Northport High School’s need. Some of the surplus boxes were sent to other schools within the Northport-East Northport UFSD to be given to needy families there. Others were disassembled, and their contents were donated along with other food items to the Northport High School Food Pantry.

While the Second Annual Feed 200 initiative did not reach its goal of putting together “200” boxes, it succeeded in satisfying the Northport-East Northport community’s need and in donating to the Northport High School Food Pantry.

Camden, one of the initiative’s senior leaders, believes this year’s Feed 200 initiative was successful beyond the numbers. “Giving one family one day to not worry about food insecurity is invaluable, and we have given this to so many families,” he says. “Additionally, this fundraiser has raised awareness of the problem of food insecurity in our community and hopefully this will lead people to take similar actions in the future.”