This fall, Blue Valley clubs have sponsored two drives — a can drive and a coat drive.
Oct. 15 through Oct. 26, KAY Club sponsored the Haunt for Harvesters food drive. Students were asked to bring in non-perishable food items and drop them off at the Jungle in the Commons.
It was a class competition which the seniors won.
Also, anyone who brought in five cans was entered in a drawing for a $25 Chipotle gift card. The winners of the gift cards were senior Hayley LeBlanc and junior Grant Johnson.
KAY Club member senior Claudia Garcia said it is important for students to participate in the food drive because it helps the community.
“There are even people here in our area who have to deal with hunger every day,” Garcia said. “We can help even the people who live really close to us.”
KAY Club member senior Steph Woltkamp said it is good for students to look outside the Johnson County bubble.
“A lot of us [at BV] have it really good,” she said. “We never have to worry about going hungry or anything like that, so it’s good that we are helping people who are less fortunate.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas High School also held a can drive, so Garcia said there was a little rivalry going between the two schools.
“We wanted to beat Aquinas, but they brought in thousands of cans,” she said. “Our goal was to have at least two barrels full.”
The Haunt for Harvesters food drive ended up exceeding the goal of two barrels.
While KAY club sponsored the food drive, the BIONIC Club hosted a coat drive. Project Warmth took place from Oct. 23 to Nov. 1.
Sponsoring a coat drive was a new idea the club pursued this year.
“[Librarian Ken] Stewart came up with the idea,” BIONIC co-president junior Meg Garton said. “We wanted to back up his idea and make it our own. He gave us the idea and then left the rest up to us — we had to decide the dates and do all the planning.”
The coat drive was a class competition which the freshmen won.
Garton said it is important for students in our area to participate in events like the coat drive.
“I think our generation has a hard time seeing outside our own little bubble,” she said. “We forget how fortunate we are, and we don’t realize that there are people who don’t even have a home or a warm coat.”