ARCANUM — Arcanum High School Senior and National Honor Society (NHS) member Madison Goubeaux participated in the NHS Trick or Treat for Canned Food Drive.
The Arcanum-Butler senior and junior high school students collected food donations from area homes, while dressed in Halloween costumes.
“This is important because it shows, as a community, that we can put a good thing together, and it shows our leadership in this town as Arcanum High School members,” she said.
According to Arcanum High School Principal Jason Stephan, the school collected more than 6,000 food items.
“It’s an amazing amount of food,” he said. “We want to thank the school staff and our community for their support. We step out and help those in need during this time of year, with tremendous help from our community and our staff to make this happen in one week. It’s amazing to see what a group of kids can collect.”
In addition to the efforts from the school, Sutton’s Foods, of Arcanum and Union City, matched the school’s drive value amount of about $600 in items, allowing the school to purchase $600 in food from Sutton’s Super Value. Sutton’s Office Manager Shala Urlage said it is important for the store to partner with the schools for anything they do for their communities. Sutton’s recently had a tailgate party, giving folks that donated a canned good $1 off of their football game ticket, Urlage said.
“When we can give back to the community; we do,” she said.
The recipients of the food drive are: Faith United Methodist, Immanuel Baptist Church and Castine Church of the Brethren. Stephan said the churches share with local food pantries too.
“Our goal is to try to feed those in need, in Arcanum, for an entire year,” he said.
In addition to the good will effort, a competitive spirit helped drive the food numbers up, according to Butler Middle School Principal Marcus Bixler.
“We had a fierce competition once again this year,” Bixler said. “It was fun to watch our student council take ownership and get everything organized each day. I want to give a big thanks to Student Council Adviser Nicki Bowser.”
“We give our kids opportunities like this, because we want them to graduate with a notion of what servant hood means and being a servant leader to others in our community and the world,” Stephan said. “Our kids step out and make these things happen. There are kids in the Arcanum and Darke County communities who go home at night without anything to eat. We hope this food drive provides them an opportunity, throughout the year, to have a dinner at home and be able to take care of themselves and their families.”
