Mahar students bring holiday food to needy families

[ Originally published on: Thursday, November 22, 2007 ]

ORANGE -- Cameron Dunbar and Erin Pulley felt joy and sadness Wednesday morning as they helped deliver Thanksgiving dinners to 55 needy families in the Orange area.

Ralph C. Mahar Regional School Key Club members delivered 55 boxes packed with Thanksgiving foods, including turkeys, so that families today could enjoy a nice meal.

'You bring a box of food to the door of one of these families and you see their faces when they answer and it just makes you feel so good,' said Dunbar, a 17-year-old senior and vice president of the club. 'You don't always think about how much you have until you see how important a box of food is to someone else.'

Dunbar joined the Key Club, a community service club of 35 Mahar students, when he was a freshman.

'I joined because I wanted to help people,' he said. 'Doing something like this certainly makes you feel like you've helped.'

The students began collecting food from other students, parents and staff and faculty in early November. They collected before school, after school and during lunch. This week they collected or bought turkeys, chickens and perishable items to fill the boxes. The local Cumberland Farms also donated food.

Tuesday night, students gathered at the school to sort and fill boxes and Wednesday morning at 7:45, they filled their cars and went door to door. Each family received canned goods, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables and fruits, pie, turkey or chicken and bread.

Dunbar said families called the school to request a box or were referred by different agencies.

'The deep gratitude you see in someone's eyes stays with you,' he said. 'It makes you want to do it over and over again.'

Pulley, a 17-year-old senior, has been a member of the Key Club since she was a sophomore.

'Doing this was so rewarding,' she said. 'It made me smile. I'd hand someone a box and they'd just keep saying 'thank you.' It made me feel sad though, because these people don't have much and because it reminds me that there's a lot more people out there that don't even get this.'

The school held an in-house competition during the food drive to spark enthusiasm. Organizers kept track of how many pounds of food, perishable and nonperishable, were donated by each class, grades 7 through 12, and the staff and faculty.

The top three winners were seniors with 604 pounds, sophomores with 313 pounds and staff with 287 pounds. The entire school collected a total of 1,728 pounds.

 

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