North Cross students volunteer with Greenway Commission.

Submitted by Bill Orndorff

Two students each of Salem High School and North Cross School attended the Rotary International Youth Leadership Seminar Dec. 5-7 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Those high school students are, from left: Jade Donaldson and Mary Stuart Carter of North Cross School in Roanoke County, and Chelsea Henderson and Christina O'Brien of Salem High School. These students are members of the Rotary Club of Roanoke Valley-sponsored Rotary Interact Club for the Salem area. Rotarian Henry Woodward is the Rotary Club of Roanoke Valley Interact Advisor. The cost for this leadership programwas provided by the Rotary Club of Roanoke Valley.

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Cave Spring High School collects 5,570 cans for food drive

'Tis the season to be merry and give. Which is what Cave Spring High School students did in an attempt to make sure more people were able to eat on Christmas. Jacki Lucki's marketing class and Nutrition Manager Dreama Rhodes and her nutrition team spear headed a canned-food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank.

On Monday, Dec. 15, Lucki's marketing class and the canned food drive student leaders, Ben Shapiro and Travis Noyes gathered together and awaited a truck to pick up their second round of items they raised. Together they hauled each box, filling the truck.

The first round of canned goods picked up totalled 872 items.

"Our first goal was to collect 2,000 cans," Lucki said. "We thought we could do that much. When we got that many we said, let's go for 3,000 and then 4,000."

The food drive began sometime in November and although deadline for students to bring in their items was Dec. 12, Lucki showed up to school with more food on her desk to add to their heaping pile of items.

Their final total ended up being 5,570 items.

All of the classrooms at Cave Spring High School participated but the winning class will be rewarded a Hardee's breakfast of their chioce. Students didn't just collect items at their school; they also stood outside of Kroger collecting cans for two days.

"The nutrition manager, Dreama, asked us if we'd be willing to help. ... The students made tally sheets, fliers, collected the boxes, spent two days in front of Kroger, went out into the neighborhoods ... it was a collaborative effort. All together I think we did an excellent job."

Team leaders, Shapiro and Noyes organized and assigned 29 of the marketing students jobs throughout the drive. Each student was assigned five or six rooms out of 51 classrooms to collect items from throughout the drive.

"It's just something good to do for the community and you can also learn marketing skills," Shapiro said. "We did better than what we expected. Mrs. Lucki kept raising the goal, everyone thought it was crazy."

"It was a blessing. We were so excited. Cans just kept coming in and we were excited that people were going to get to eat for Christmas," Rhodes added.

When asked what Noyes got out of the food drive he said, "The satisfaction of helping people and the community."

Rhodes said that their nutrition chapter was trying to come up with things to do and decided to do the food drive. They also collected socks and filled 90 stockings.

"As bad as times are, we just wanted to give back," she said. "From the get go our chapter discussed it and we just started collecting."

With their great success, the students and nutrition manager plan to do it again next year.

Lucki's class would send a special shout out to to thank Tamara Taylor, Chelsea Patton, Stephanie Miranda, Danielle Cohan and Kaylie Kerr.

For more photos from the canned food drive pick-up, visit The Notebook on sosalem.com.