As the holidays roll around once again, M-A’s annual canned food drive picks back up in full swing. Mike Amoroso, M-A’s leadership teacher, helps students put on the annual event and has set big goals for this year’s drive. In the past two years, the drive has raised over 300,000 cans. Just last year, M-A raised enough to fed over 600 families in the Bay Area. M-A has been recognized by Second Harvest Food Bank and almost every year has received the Blue Ribbon Award for raising at least 50,000 pounds of food. Amoroso proudly shared that “for the past two years we have been community champions.”
This year, Leadership has set the biggest goal yet for the canned food drive. “According to our calculations, if we raise 100,000 pounds of food and meet our monetary goal, leadership will write the check for $8,000 to have the Guinness World Record come down and certify that we are the largest canned food drive in the world.” According to Amoroso, the last group to receive this title and a check for $100,000 was local San Mateo High School.
Leadership plans to establish new programs this year for the canned food drive. Every week, the class that earns the most cans will get free donuts. The third period ‘king’ or ‘queen’ with the most cans in the week’s winning class will get a catered lunch.
Despite these new incentives, Amoroso hopes that students will decide to contribute to the canned food drive out of “the goodness of their hearts” and desire to help meal-insecure families this holiday season.
