Give food. It feels good.

My son is part of the “Leadership Team” at his elementary school. And for the last couple of weeks he has been helping to organize and handle a school wide can-food drive. This included him using his much loved public speaking skills to go to the classrooms and encourage the kids to bring in food for those in need. It also meant he has been spending nearly all of his recess time collecting and counting cans from all of the classrooms.

Of course the day I came down stairs after their father took them to school and noticed my pantry was totally wiped clean of ANYTHING in a can, I was not so happy. I had to go to the store to replace all the canned goods I kept in there for US to eat. But my kid’s hearts were in the right place so how can I fault them? I praised them for my their generosity.

Finally last Thursday we loaded up two trucks with cans and off we went to the Second Harvest-Feed America Food Bank. We were all excited and immensely proud to hand over all the school had collected. And to our surprise, they managed to bring in nearly half a ton (1,349 lbs) of food. Which as it turns out is the largest donation by a single school to date to the facility! We were given an enthusiastic tour of their wonderful location and learned more about where the donations would be headed. It was heart warming. And just plain good.

And definitely something I want to do again and again. Did you know for every $1 you donate, they can buy $12 worth of food? (bulk, wholesale etc. make that possible). So next time you see a Second Harvest food barrel at the grocery store, go ahead and throw a can in. It will make you feel great. Trust me.