The annual canned food drive from November 27-December 15 helped the Contra Costa Food Bank raise money and cans during the winter months.

In years past, classes competed with each other to contribute the highest number of cans, however, this year Leadership offered various prizes based on a series of benchmark goals.

The prize for collecting 1000 cans was candy, 1500 was baked goods, 2000 was sundaes, and the class that collected the most cans received a pizza party. The campus-wide goal was 50,000 cans.

According to Leadership adviser Lindsay Webb-Peploe, the benchmark goals provided all classes with a chance to win prizes.

Last year, according to Webb-Peploe, only 26 out of the 45 classes during 5th period  reached between 600-800 cans. “Great job to those classes,” she said, “but if you’re at 600 or 800 cans, it can be really hard to motivate towards the end of the drive because 600 to 800 cans isn’t going to win the overall prize, but it’s actually not that far to get to 1,000 cans.”

She added, “The idea was to take half of the school and motivate them to get 100 or 200 more cans which will help us reach out overall goal and help feed people in Contra Costa County, and then be able to reward more student participation.”

Senior Rachel Brickman said, “we wanted each class to be encouraged to reach the goal because in years past, if you’re in a bracket with someone who has like 2,000 more cans than you, a lot of times you just give up, so this way, less people will give up and will have an equal opportunity for everyone to reach a goal.”

“Instead of competing with others, you get to focus on your own class. It makes it more fun,” agreed senior Grace Stafford. ” Stafford has donated routinely to the drive and encourages her classmates to donate, too.

Students were allowed to donate money as well as cans; $1 equaled 3 cans.

With the block schedule implemented, Brickman said, “It’s definitely a little hard to get donations because we don’t have 5th period everyday so kids often forget and you don’t have a reminder. We also had to think about the block schedule so our goal this year was less than last year only because we don’t have as many days to collect.”