Sixteen years ago the Future Business Leaders of America club at West Henderson High School identified a need among their classmates: not everyone was guaranteed a hearty Thanksgiving meal over the holiday break.
In her first year as club advisor, business teacher Suzanne Green helped her students raise money to put together Thanksgiving meals for two needy students in the club
“It was really minimal, what we did then,” she said.
Each year the need has grown, and each year the FBLA club has answered the call, with the help and generosity of Falcon staff, students, parents and local businesses.
“Last year, we did 18 (meals),” said Hope R., a senior at West who’s been an FBLA member and packed Thanksgiving meals all four years of high school. “This year we did 20.”
Green said they were just given a number; the identities of the needy students are only known by the school’s guidance counselors, who create a list of names from recommendations gathered from faculty, staff and students.
On Thursday after school, the FBLA club – along with the DECA club, Family, Career and Community Leaders of America club, the Pride Junior Civitan club, the Health Occupations Students of America club, and boys baseball team – packed 40 bags of items donated by Food Lion, Ingles, Harris Teeter, Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart.
Bags were full of Thanksgiving Day fixings, including canned corn, canned green beans, cranberry sauce, stuffing mix, rice, dinner rolls, instant mashed potatoes or fresh potatoes, instant or fresh sweet potatoes, and gravy mix.
“Each family will get (two bags), a turkey, a pie and a grocery store $25 gift card,” as well as a turkey baking pan, Green said. “Everything that got donated and we collected stays here with our students.”
She explained that all the food was either donated by local grocery stores or purchased using the $250 students collected from parents in the afternoon car rider lines and in homeroom classes last week.
Green said Hope was especially instrumental in organizing the thanksgiving meals this year, and drove to each grocery store to meet with the different departments.
“She was the one who got most of the donations this year,” Green said.
Food Lion donated 50 reusable shopping bags and pies, Ingles donated turkeys, Harris Teeter donated $60 in gift cards, Sam’s donated $50 in gift cards, and Wal-Mart donated $75.
As the packing date got closer, Green said teachers and students just offered dollars here and turkeys there, until all the items and gift cards for the 20 families were collected.
Hope said, “Everything just came together perfectly.”
“And that’s what happens every year,” said Green.
(Written by Molly McGowan Gorsuch, HCPS Public Information Officer.)