Students at St. Joseph High School donned their costumes and went door-to-door Tuesday night, but not for candy. The students spent their Halloween night gathering donations for the Saskatoon Food Bank.
This year’s Halloween for Hunger campaign has raised at least 21,096 pounds of food, so many donations that the school had trouble storing it.
“We could not find enough containers,” Rachelle Kelln, the organizing teacher at St. Joseph, said.
“We have all the school recycle bins, we have the pop recycle bins from the cafeteria, we even used the lost-and-found bin.”
READ MORE: Exploring Saskatoon’s spooky stories
It took around three hours for the 279 students on 94 routes throughout the community to gather all the donations Tuesday night.
“It was a lot of work, we probably spent two and a half hours just boxing and as soon as we got caught up with all the food coming in, more food would come in,” Grade 12 student Caitlyn Spurr said.
“It was a lot of work but lots of fun and it was good to see all the St. Joe’s students coming together to get all this food.”
READ MORE: Saskatoon students crunch for World Food Day
This is the eighth year students at the school have held their Halloween for Hunger campaign.
“From those who have much, much is required, and this school is fortunate,” Kelln said. “The student body, the staff and our social justice group believe that it’s our job to step up and help those who need it.”
Last year, the school donated 19,000 pounds of food, which is expected to help stock the food bank’s shelves until Christmas.