On Dec. 2, Dayspring Christian Academy, 120 College Ave., Mountville, combined forces with the Mountville Lions Club to organize a food drive in support of the Columbia Food Bank. This is the second year that the school has held a drive with the Lions Club, and the drive acquired more than 1,700 donations.

The food drive began when Jeff Weinman, a member of the Mountville Lions Club, contacted the school to pitch the idea last year. The Dayspring student government assisted with the drive for the first year, but when its members were unable to help organize it this year, the students in NHS stepped in to lend a hand.

"It worked out beautifully," said Donna Hurley, director of curriculum and instruction at Dayspring and an adviser of its NHS chapter. "We had one year behind us, so we had some clues as to what goals to set and what strategies to use." The students at Dayspring were given a special incentive to reach a certain number of donations. If a class met the donation goal, it would earn a special dress day when its students could shirk their regular uniforms and wear other clothes to school.

Students at Dayspring banded together to prepare for the drive by holding class competitions, handing out flyers and contacting churches and businesses in the area to elicit support. Each member of Dayspring's NHS chapter was assigned a different task, such as writing thank you notes, coordinating where boxes were collected, acquiring enough boxes for the donations and acquiring permissions from school leadership. "It was incredible to see (the students) coordinate all of the little logistical pieces of running a food drive," Hurley said. When the day of the drive arrived, the Lions Club parked a moving truck across from the school, and students filed out of their classrooms to proudly carry boxes of goods to be delivered to the food bank. Boxes were filled to the brim with nonperishable goods such as canned vegetables, fruits, soup, meats, jars of peanut butter, pasta sauce and boxed cereal.

Next year, the school hopes to organize another drive and apply what its organizers have learned from operating the event two years in a row. Although the Lions Club is spearheading the event, Hurley and members of NHS want to connect with more organizations in the area to enlist their help with planning and expanding the drive. "We are so blessed to have worked together to gather provisions for community members for the second year," said Hurley. "Seeing the joy of students as they carried food donations to the truck is a memory I will carry with me."