It’s the season of fall and the students of BHA are roaming the halls. Everyone is hyped for fall break as it’s around the corner. Little did everyone know that STUCO (Student Council) had a fun challenge prepared.
On Monday, November 3rd, STUCO announced a fun event! It was the canned food drive, and as always, students were to buy cans and put them into their respective boxes, where they would be later donated to a charity. This event was nothing new as it always happened every year. This drive was set to run from November 3rd to November 12th, and all cans would be donated to the Samaritan Inn. The Samaritan Inn is a charity organization that helps families dealing with homelessness. In the past, students would put cans into boxes based on their grade level. This year though, it was
decided that students would have to put the cans into boxes based on their house. To make it more appealing, the house that collected the most cans would gain 500 house points, and the house in second place would get 250 house points.Â
In the beginning, the drive was moving at a slow pace, with a relatively limited amount of donations. To motivate more students to participate, STUCO announces which house was in the lead either during morning announcements or after salah, and posted flyers about the drive all around the school.
These actions seem to have done the trick. As the food drive was slowly coming to an end, more and more students brought in cans. It seemed like the house of Aishah and Khadijah would win. At the last minute, however, STUCO suddenly announced that the drive would be extended to November 13th. No one could have expected what was to come that day.
On Thursday November 13th, students brought boxes and loads of cans to donate to the drive. It was a major plot twist nobody expected. Most of the action occurred during lunchtime, as kids were be hauling loads of cans to their house box, while other students just stared in awe.Â
Whether this was all done in the hopes of sincerely donating, or to earn house points is unknown. What is known, however, is that the number of cans donated increased dramatically, an obviously positive outcome. After school, all of STUCO gathered to pack the cans into boxes for delivery. The next day, on Friday November 14th, after Jumah salah, STUCO announced that a total of 835 vans were donated. This year likely saw the greatest student participation in the drive. Moreover, due to the sheer amount of last minute contributions, the donations leaderboard changed dramatically. The House of Khadijah placed last, the House of Aishah was third, the House of Umar was second, and finally, the House of Abu Bakr was first.
Hats off to STUCO for being able to rally the students to gather so many cans of food! All in all, this year’s annual canned food drive was definitely a core memory. It was unique and different from previous drives, and even featured a plot twist no one expected. Inshallah, there will be many more canned food drives like this in the future, where a lasting impression is left that no one will forget.
