The recent “Stuff The Bus” food drive at Butler County’s largest school system marked a second consecutive year Lakota has matched a record haul of food donations for Reach Out Lakota’s pantry for needy local families.
The donations are especially appreciated given the on-going inflationary costs for food items, which are especially hard-hitting for low-income families, said Lakota officials.
The approximately 27,500 donations resulting from this school year’s district-wide food drive almost exactly met the 2022 record-breaking total, which was 45 percent higher than the year prior, Lakota officials recently announced.
Moreover, the donations came during a year when pantry visits were trending 32 percent higher than the year prior. In 2023, the relief organization’s visits are once again topping their 2022 visits by another 33 percent.
“We are incredibly grateful for the support of the Lakota school board in its continued support of Stuff the Bus,” said Brenda Yablonsky, the director and CEO of Reach Out Lakota.
“We want to thank every school building’s leadership, students and families who devoted time and money to execute this massive food drive. Your donations go directly to helping hundreds of local families who are struggling to make ends meet and providing them with hope for a better tomorrow,” said Yablonsky.
Lakota’s “Stuff The Bus” is the largest annual collection for the primary relief organization serving families in West Chester and Liberty Twps.
Reach Out Lakota officials said the fall timing of food drive is no accident as “it hits during a time when the shelves are emptying out from the summer rush.”
“In 2022, the organization gave out over 266,000 meals to about 9,000 individuals. That’s the equivalent of about 319,000 pounds of food valued at over $571,000.”
The fall food drive is also a friendly competition among Lakota’s 24 school buildings and 17,800 students. This school year’s top donor was Independence Elementary in Liberty Twp.
Lakota officials said student participation is key.
“With student leadership groups at the helm of most schools’ collections and campaigns, students are historically the driving force behind the drive’s overall success,” said officials.
“Such was the case this year at Independence Elementary School, where the prize of just 10 minutes of extra recess to the top collecting grade level was enough to generate over 4,300 donations.”
For that, Independence maintained its spot as the top collecting school and the owner of the traveling trophy for at least another year.
At Wyandot Early Childhood School, the drive literally became an extension of their classroom learning.
Second grade teachers saw it as an opportunity to reinforce skills learned across multiple social studies units while giving students an opportunity to apply their learning and take ownership of the effort. Each class adopted a kindergarten and first grade class to team up with for the drive. They created collection bins, flyers and posters and even used their math skills to count the donations that came in for their class and partner classes.
Wyandot officials said the project was an amazing way to show how the school and others can work together to meet community needs and wants.
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