BY REBECCA PALMER
Clipper Editor
KAYSVILLE — Student groups all over Davis County have worked to gather food for the less fortunate this season, but the teens in the Davis High School Key Club and Davis Pride decided to make this year’s collection drive especially meaningful.
They brought cans of beans, dehydrated milk, tomatoes and more for their peers, some of whom might be technically homeless. Waist-high stacks of the food filled the counseling center at the high school by the time the drive was over, totaling thousands of items.
The food would go to the students of Mountain High School, the alternative high school located on the Davis Applied Technology Center, where flexible courses of study accommodate students who are often at risk.
Included with the donations were recipes for the students.
“It’s kids our age and we’re helping kids our age,” said Alison Williams, a senior. She and her fellow students sometimes cook for themselves and often help make family dinners, they said.
“It’s just really been heartwarming and very touching to see so much food brought in,” said Sharon Blair, Davis High School Key Club advisor. “This is the most we’ve ever gotten.”
The clubs conduct the food drive annually.
The peer-focused effort came after Miss Farmington Morgan Miller and the PTA emailed parents and students about the problems of homelessness earlier this year. It was part of her “Home Sweet Home” campaign for gathering hygiene kits.
There are more than 1,000 homeless students in the county, according to the Davis County Homeless Plan. They may not live sleep on park benches or under bridges, but reside in “a variety of transitory environments that include doubled with another family, in a hotel or motel, in a shelter, in a car, park, campground or public place,” according to the report.
At Davis, the annual food drive was organized as a contest between first-period classes. From one class, a student brought in dozens of cans of food straight from warehouse-store pallets.
They collected so much, in fact, that they could give the extra to students at Lincoln Elementary in Layton.
Beyond helping the students who received the food, the teens who organized the drive said it and the other service activities they participate in bring them closer together.
“It’s very inclusive,” said Clark Sandholtz, a senior and a leader in Davis Pride. “We have become way better friends.”
For Malorie Allen, also a senior, doing service work is an opportunity to participate in the greater community.
“We all think of ways to make our school and community a better place,” she said.
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