Monday, December 2, 2024
Student volunteers from East Meadow High School’s Key Club are lending a hand to help feed hungry families in time for Thanksgiving by recently holding their annual fall food drive and collecting goods outside ShopRite of Uniondale.
The Key Club is affiliated with the Kiwanis Club of East Meadow, which organizes two seasonal food drives each year, one each in the spring and fall. Volunteers collected sealed food items and ingredients, from canned goods to cake mix, as well as gift cards to purchase perishable items like dairy products and fresh vegetables. The goal was to provide every family in need in East Meadow with at least three bags of food.
“I really love doing food drives because it’s direct,” Catherine Razzano, Kiwanis Club member who has chaired the food drive committee for six years, said. “There’s nothing in between — it’s volunteers collecting food, and that food gets sorted by the kids and goes right into the homes of people who need it, and this one is actually really embedded in the East Meadow community.”
Volunteers encouraged community members to give what they could.
As Thanksgiving approaches, the food collected will be moved from storage to W.T. Clarke High School, where students and their families will prepare the items for distribution.
“The families (who receive donations) are given to us by the social workers at each school in the district,” Razzano explained. “Last year, I actually had a family that said they’ve been on our list, and now they’re not. That’s what it’s about — getting people through a difficult time in their life so that they can be self-sufficient.”
Volunteers collected a record number of non-perishable food items at this year’s drive, which took place on Nov. 9 and 10, Razzano said. She added that multiple trips were made over two days to transport all of the food items to the holding location, where the food will be assembled for families in need.
The drive also collected enough monetary donations to provide 55 gift cards to purchase perishable items, and Kiwanis will cover the cost for an additional 100 gift cards, to be distributed to more than 150 households in need.
The Key Club, a division of the Kiwanis Club, encourages young people to get involved in community service events.
“We have over 200 students in the club,” Carly Salzman, an East Meadow High School counselor and Key Club advisor, said. “They have such a passion for it, and it definitely drives me to do this for them.
“Often, they’ll start at the club and want it for their college resume, and then they fall in love with the service piece of it,” Salzman added. “I think that it can be life changing for the kids to see what their hard work can produce.”
Nichole Manalil, a senior at the high school and Key Club president, helped rally volunteers to participate in the event and led the organization of the donations.
“All these events have taught me who I want to be for the future,” Manalil said. “This will be my seventh year being a member of Kiwanis, and it’s just taught me so many values that I would love to live by.”
Taking part in the food drive has given students like Manalil a new perspective on life, she said, and drove her to consider how to use her position in the community for good.
“When we get donations, it’s such a heartwarming feeling, that kindness from total strangers who are going throughout their day and donate what they can,” Manalil said. “I want to be able to give back whatever I can and make people feel empowered to live their lives. I’m so glad that we have this organization that teaches young students like me how to become leaders, and how to take part and really take action in our community right away.”
The Kiwanis Club of East Meadow is involved in community events all year long. For more information, visit EastMeadowKiwanis.org.
Additional reporting by Jordan Vallone.
