In recent years, Lakeview has participated in a Thanksgiving canned food drive contest. Items that families might need as the winter weather approaches are collected throughout the school. This year that tradition is continuing as Lakeview students are getting involved in any way they can.

The items that are most needed are peanut butter, granola bars, sloppy joe, and any canned foods; these will help families in need the most. Lakeview is all about helping the community and the city of Cortland. This year Senior Grace Rock and Junior DinaMarie Johnson took the lead for this event.

Holding the Donate for Donuts contest is always popular with students.

Senior Ava Parise says, ¨I am so thankful to be a part of a school that gives back to the community, and the people in need. The Thanksgiving food drive is an amazing way to collect food and get students involved in making a change.¨

Junior DinaMarie Johnson says, ¨I am so happy to be a part of such an amazing thing here at Lakeview, and  helping people in need is what we need more of here.”

In order to get more people involved the food drive was turned into a contest. Each class received a box which is where each student would put the items they brought in to their 2nd period class that day. The items in the boxes would be collected at the end of each school day. Each item was worth a certain amount of points, and depending on what items were brought in, points would be tallied up for each class. The class with the most points at the end of the week would win donuts.

¨Mrs. Petrunia has an account for all of the food drives we do, so the donuts were donated by her¨, says Junior DinaMarie Johnson.

Seeing all the work that Petrunia does in the Lookout and with her monthly food distribution inspired the girls to run the food drive as they saw the shelves beginning to look bare.

Senior Grace Rock says, ¨We have been helping Mrs. Petrunia collect food, and when we wanted to collect more we thought this was the perfect opportunity to do so.¨

Rock and Johnson hope to have more fun opportunities to get the school involved and are hoping to have more contests as the end of the school year approaches. In order to do so, it is important that the students of Lakeview keep helping and volunteering wherever and whenever they can. It is also important to remember that the food drive is not the only time you can donate, if you ever have anything you might think will help the families of Cortland there are plenty of opportunities to make it happen. We are so lucky to have such an easy and efficient way to get these items to people in need, thanks to Mrs . Pertrunia and everyone that helps out behind the scenes.

This contest took place November 15th- November 19th. The winning class this year was Mr. Johnson´s 2nd-period class, congratulations and thank you for setting a great example for Lakeview High School!