South Vienna students collect food for needy in Clark, Champaign

Students at South Vienna School collected hundreds of cans and boxes of food for people in need in Clark and Champaign counties.

The drive was spearheaded by the student council, seventh-grade student Trinity Ridgeway said.

“We are doing a food drive for our community, for the Nation Chapel Church. They have a food pantry there,” she said. “They get to pick from all this food that we donated.”

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Both the elementary and the middle schools combined on the effort. Students hoped to collect as much food as possible for those in need.

The student council has a relationship with the food pantry, South Vienna teacher and student council adviser Kathy Calhoun said. For the past five or six years, students have been volunteering at the pantry once a month.

“Before this started, we went to the food pantry and realized they were running short on food,” she said. “So we decided to send them more.”

Students took the time to help others, Calhoun said, and have been passionate about it.

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“The kids, when we go, their hearts just widen,” Calhoun said. “Just being there and they get an amazing feeling being able to help out. It does them a lot of good. They get a good feeling for them.”

It was also important to the kids that they do something that helps families in need that live here.

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“It does stay here and it does help out our own families and I think that touches the kids,” Calhoun said. “The kids wanted to do something that we could do around here and we have a great group of kids that like to come and help out.”

The effort put into the drive is rewarding, she said.

“It makes me feel very happy that other people get to eat the food we collected,” she said.

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