10000 Lunches, A Great Way for Students to Give Back

10,000 Lunches is an ongoing community service project where volunteers make sandwiches and then deliver them to homeless shelters in Oakland. The club meets every other Friday in F6.

The club was originally started by Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School (JMIS) teacher Brett Lorie. Students meet every Friday in the food room to make lunches. On weekends, Lorie and other kids drive to Oakland and deliver them to people in need.

This club that originated at JMIS has inspired students to continue its legacy at Campolindo.

One of these students is club president and founder, junior Cale Anderson. When asked about what inspired him to start the club he said, “10,000 lunches was created by Mr. Lorie at [JMIS] and him along with my mother helped facilitate the club there and deliver the lunches so I was pretty involved throughout my middle school career along with some other students.” He added, “A lot of us thought that it would be a good idea to bring that over to Campo.”

The COVID-19 outbreak forced the club members to halt the extension of the club at Campo in order to keep everyone safe. It was postponed until a later date.

Anderson said, “when [the] COVID[-19] procedure ended, we were really looking forward to starting up this club as we find it really fun not only to create lunches but it is also a good cause helping out those who are less fortunate.”

Junior Cole Hickey, another member of the 10,000 Lunches club and a co-founder, said that he goes to the meetings because, “[he] think[s] about all those people in San Francisco and Oakland who don’t have food.” He added, “I think we’re fortunate here to have free lunches, and it’s really important to get them food too.” He continued by saying, “It makes me feel really good knowing that we’re doing the best we can to help everyone, especially with the amount of people and support we have.”

Students express the fact that community service is a great way to feel good about yourself and help out other people which motivates a lot of students to attend the meetings to help make the lunches.

Sophomore Jack Braun explained this by saying, “Making lunches makes me feel good about helping the community…everyone loves sandwiches and why not help some people out who are hungry.”

Anderson said that at a typical meeting, “everybody is involved in putting the sandwiches together… get[ting] them bagged, and then bring[ing] them back down to the car. Then they are given to Mr. Lorie or Mrs. Anderson who drive them out to Berkeley and drop them off at various homeless communities.”

Anderson explained that in order to get involved with the club, students can pop into meetings that occur every other Friday. “If you really want to get involved we have a communications channel run by our secretary [Hickey] which you can use to just get in contact with [him],” he added.

Hickey encourages other students to try out the club because, “It gives you all the community service hours for a Community Service Award…In addition, you should just do it to help the community.”

10,000 Lunches continues to meet every other Friday and they encourage more students to come try it out if they are interested in community service.