Downey High School and the Downey Parent Teacher Student Association HELPS program held their annual Food Drive from Sept. 18 through Sept. 29. Their main goal was to collect 16,000 canned foods for those in need in the Downey community. The winners of this year’s competition were the classes of Mrs. Ramirez in third place, Coach Mendoza in second place and last but not least, Mr. Young in first place for the third year in a row.

Former president of Downey High School’s KIWIN’S Club, Priscilla Ayala, 12, explains how donating cans and helping others in need makes her feel.

“After gathering a few cans from my pantry and giving them away, I feel my heart warm knowing that another person can enjoy the meal that I am donating,” Ayala said. “Also, donating empowers me to help in many more ways.”

Because of her love for helping others, Julia Sanchez, 12, shares why she believes Downey High School’s involvement in the food drive is important.

“The food drive is important because it’s a way that our school can come together as a whole and give back to the community together,” Sanchez said. “There are a lot of different clubs at our school that do community service on behalf of Downey High School, but the food drive allows the entire school to do a good deed together.”

Downey High School held a school-wide competition between all fourth period classes as motivation for students to get involved and bring in cans. The fourth period classes of Mr. Young, Coach Mendoza and Mrs. Ramirez received a choice of a pizza, ice cream or donut party.

ASB member, Laylah Gorlero, 12, gives some insight on how much planning goes into the food drive and different ways ASB promote it.

“This year we’ve really stepped it up and have been promoting this food drive for about a month. A lot of planning goes into this event and it’s extremely crucial for me to keep it organized with the help of the rest of ASB,” Gorlero said. “It’s definitely a time consuming, organizing, type of job but putting in all that work in the beginning makes the end and our goal definitely worth it.”

This year Downey High School had a goal of reaching 16,000 cans in just two weeks. This is 1,000 more cans than last year’s goal and ASB was hard at work motivating students to donate.

“We like to encourage our school by recognizing that we are doing this for our community and we are giving back to them,” Gorlero said. “We publicized through posters, social media and this year we had a banner to go in the quad to make sure everyone knew what was going on.”

Downey High School’s goal of collecting 16,000 cans for this year’s Annual Food Drive demonstrates just how much character the city of Downey has.