Delta students prep for B.C.’s largest one-day food drive

Thanksgiving doesn’t end on the weekend for Delview Secondary students.

For the 20th year, on the Thursday after the Thanksgiving weekend, students and staff from the North Delta school will be out in the community as part of Thanks for Giving – collecting non-perishable food items for the Surrey Food Bank and Deltassist Family and Community Services.

The effort is the largest single-day food drive in the province.

Jessica Ros, 17, has participated in Thanks for Giving for all five of her years at Delview.

“It’s probably the biggest tradition we have,” said the Grade 12 student. “People who leave the school or graduate, they talk about Thanks for Giving.

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“I think it’s going to be going for a long time,” she said.

Although there are only about 750 students at Delview, Ros estimated 500 to 600 students will fan out through the area to knock on doors and collect food.

“I think it’s just a really good cause,” said Ros. “We’re going out and helping people in the community.

“A lot of kids, these days they don’t really do that sort of thing anymore,” she said. “I think it’s really important that we all just give back to the community.”

What’s given is significant – more than 10,000 items are collected each year.

In fact, according to Grade 12 student Braeden Peterson, the event started out being called ‘10 in 1’ with a goal of collecting 10,000 cans in one night.

Teacher Sandy Ferguson, who was one of the co-founders of that event, still participates.

Peterson is an example of the tradition in the event because he was persuaded to volunteer in the organization of Thanks for Giving by his older sister Kelsey. He now works to convince Grade 8 students to participate.

“Our whole school is very willing to participate in this,” said Peterson. “Everyone has a fun time.”

After so many years of having students knocking on their doors, people in Delta are receptive to the initiative.

“A lot of people have items at the door ready at this time of year,”said Peterson.

The goal this year is to beat the record of 16,155 items that were donated in 2008.