PHOTO BY CHUCK HOVEN

Tuesday, November 26, 2019; St. Augustine Church, 2486 W. 14^th Street: Max Hayes student Christian Harris unloads a box of donated food from the truck. Students and staff from Max Hayes High School brought donations to the St. Augustine Hunger Center from their school’s food drive. Max Hayes High School’s food drive collected over 2,000 pounds of food to donate to the hunger center.

Max Hayes Food Drive collects donations for St. Augustine Hunger Center

(Plain Press, January 2020)    Max Hayes High School students and staff filled the bed of a pickup truck with groceries and delivered them to the hunger center at St. Augustine Church on November 26^th, just days before Thanksgiving. About a dozen students from Max Hayes High School accompanied by teachers and staff members came to St. Augustine to unload the truck.

The donations in the truck were the result of a successful food drive at Max Hayes High School.

Max Hayes Construction Program teachers James MacDowell and Jim Mulgrew say the school “organized our chapter of Skills USA and our first community project was to establish a food drive.”

The teachers reported, “The team used the drive to weigh the food and set a 2000lb goal. Every day we calculated the progress. We built a big thermometer and painted our increasing percentages.

“We used the event to teach math and writing. The students made posters and created clever morning announcement speeches,” they added. Mulgrew noted that cash donations to the food drive offered students an opportunity to shop and calculate how to get the best value for their budgets at a local grocery.

“It was a great school project and all the staff were very supportive. The security staff collected all the cans in the morning, and Ms. Evans our security officer was a great supporter advertising and keeping the food drive going” MacDowell and Mulgrew said.

In addition, they noted, “The health teacher, Mr. G, was also a solid avenue for good can collections.”