Can Drive Helps County Hungry

The winners of the Heroes bracket and the overall champions, Ken Ingersoll’s class amassed 16,128 cans during the annual canned food drive sponsored by leadership.

Organized by senior class president Fiona Stewart, leadership students stopped by each classroom during 4th period every day from December 7-18 to collect cash or cans.

To create competition, classes were divided into 5 brackets in order to compete for the most donations. “It’s divided up by previous years and by how many cans have been collected before, so the top donators are put in the top bracket,” said senior Leadership student Katie Erickson.

“If you win your bracket, you win baked goods,” said Stewart. “The class that donates the most gets a pizza party.”

The winner of the Champions bracket was Lisa Herzig’s class with 3,054 cans. Anu Kuefner’s class from the Leaders bracket came in with 1,640.96 cans while Lindsay Webb-Pepploe’s class from the Legends bracket was close behind, with 1,640.07 cans. The winner of the Professionals bracket was Tom Duffy’s class with 1,025 cans.

Stewart, who has been in Leadership since her freshman year, said, “I organized the canned food drive last year, because my position is the head of philanthropy. I organize all the charity drives throughout the year.”

Leadership’s goal was to collect 70,000 total cans, with $20,000 from donations. Each dollar donated equals 3 cans.

“This year, we’ve put more of an emphasis on collecting cash and checks because the Contra Costa Food Bank likes getting that better because they can buy more cans with the money than just cans,” explained Stewart.

“We’re one of the top schools that donate cans,” said Erickson.

The annual collection helps the Contra Costa Food Bank provide for hungry people in the county. “I think it’s a great thing that Campo does each year because, especially in the cold winter months and holidays, families really need food, and it’s helpful that they have a resource where they can get food,” said Stewart.

Ultimately, 50,135 cans were collected.