As the winter season approaches, Goodpasture Christian School prepares for its annual food drive. Starting on Dec. 2, Goodpasture will officially begin collecting non-perishable food items to go toward their goal.
The tradition of the food drive started around 51 years ago. It began as a competition between Goodpasture and some surrounding schools to see who could collect the most cans.
Although there’s no competition with other schools anymore, the tradition of competition has remained as the grades compete against each other.
“I always want us to make sure we’re doing it for the right reasons,” Mrs. Bethany Billingsley, one of the food drive organizers, said. “I don’t want it to get so competitive that we forget what we’re doing it for.”
On Nov. 18, Mrs. Billingsley spoke to the student body at the food drive kick-off to explain the purpose of the food drive and this year’s goals.
“Around ⅙ of children face hunger every day in Tennessee right now,” Mrs. Billingsley said.
Alongside that staggering statistic, she also shared that over 40% of families in Tennessee face food insecurity.
“Our main goal is to provide as much food for as many different organizations as we can,” Ms. Kate Keith, a food drive organizer, said. “The more people we can help, the better.”
Last year, Goodpasture raised more than $278,000 during the food drive. This year’s school-wide goal is to raise $200,000.
“If we can bring in $200,000, it will give at least one truck-full to the over fifty foodbanks that come,” Mrs. Billingsley said.
For the high school students, the incentive days will begin on Dec 3. If they raise $20,000 in donations, they will be able to wear sweatpants on the first day of each week in January.
Later that week on Dec. 5, freshman and sophomore students can receive one mercy pass for every 24 cans that they donate. Following this, on Dec. 6, juniors and seniors will also be able to get a mercy pass by turning in 24 cans.
Mercy passes are rewards from teachers that include dropped quiz grades, homework passes, extra points on exams, etc. Twenty-four cans earn one mercy pass from one teacher, 48 cans earn a mercy pass from two teachers, etc.
Then, on Dec. 9, if students bring in 15,000 cans, they will be able to wear sweatpants on the first day of the week throughout February. The final incentive day will be on Dec. 11, and if students school-wide bring in 20,000 cans they will receive a school-wide extra late start day in the spring.
In preparation for the food drive, Mrs. Billingsley and Ms. Keith, along with the Goodpasture student council, have been working tirelessly to prepare for the food drive.
“We’ve been getting our incentive days approved, setting goals for the individual grades, we came up with the theme, and began collecting boxes,” Ms. Keith said.
This year’s food drive theme is a quote from High School Musical, “We’re all in this together.”
“I love this year’s theme because 20 people can’t do this food drive alone; we all have to help for it to be successful,” Mrs. Billingsley said.
Goodpasture’s food drive has also helped Mrs. Billingsley’s family in the past. When she was a young girl, her family’s house burned down in a house fire, and the food that her family was given came from Goodpasture’s food drive.
“I think it’s a God thing, it’s very full-circle,” Mrs. Billingsley said, “You never know when you can benefit from the things you help with.”
