Photo provided to the Times Observer Several student groups at Eisenhower Middle High School collaborated on a food drive to benefit 12 families in the community. In the photo are Hannah Newcamp, Hailey Eckman, National Honor Society President Bailey Lundmark and Key Club President Taylor Napolitan.

Food insecurity is a challenge in the community.

But a group of students at Eisenhower have put together a successful food drive to bless a dozen families.

The food drive is an annual event at Eisenhower but — unlike past years — students were in the lead this year.

Carol Livingston, an English teacher at Eisenhower, said three student groups — National Honor Society, Key Club and Student Council — came together to run the effort.

“They organized the students of these three organizations in the high school and the National Junior Honor Society students in the middle school,” Livingston said.

That included incentives for donations, advertisement posters, announcements and a push on the school’s Facebook page.

“They organized, categorized and will have everything ready to be picked up by the families on Tuesday and Wednesday before the Christmas holiday,” Livingston added.

“I loved helping out,” Taylor Napolitan, Key Club president said. “It would always make my day going into the conference room where we kept our food donations and seeing all of the bins filled with food. It’s so heartwarming knowing that kids donated these items.”

Bailey Lundmark, National Honor Society president, detailed the incentive process they implemented to spur donations.

“We put Christmas trees on all the doors of the classrooms and the goal was to get all of the colored ornaments available. The color of ornaments was based on different groups of food,” Lundmark explained. If you got all of the ornaments then on the last day of school before break you get a free-fun day.

“With this incentive we managed to rake in enough food for the 12 families around the area that the food will go to.”

It was clear during the drive that the students knew where the food was going.

“They are helping out kids from our school and their families with these donations,” Napolitan said, crediting the students who led the effort in the student groups. “The kids were all so helpful and willing to do whatever they could to help make our job easier.”

“There was one teacher on staff who donated all the turkeys and hams plus several bags of potatoes for all the families who would benefit from the drive,” Livingston said. “Other teachers added to the drive. Teachers and staff from the entire Eisenhower campus held their own donation basket raffle which raised funds to supplement the food, help supply our school’s wellness pantry and assist with community service projects in the elementary school.”

Steve Leonhardt, a teacher at the school, supervised the effort.

“I’ve been impressed with how Eisenhower has come together to make this happen,” he said. “The students at large brought in a lot of food.

“What’s really been amazing is how much work the students have put in. There is a core group of students who have taken a lot of initiative and put in a lot of hard work for this food drive. It’s clear that they care about the community and want to help.”

“In all I think everyone did an amazing job this year and I am grateful for all of the donations that we received,” Lundmark said.

Lydia Larson, student council president, praised the clubs for coming together to make the drive a success.

“Everyone worked together well and we collected a lot of food to help out local families,” she said. I’m glad that the members of student council and myself were able to help out this year and make a positive impact on some families’ Christmas.”

Hannah Newcamp, a senior National Honor Society Student, added that this was her first year helping out with the effort.

“Being able to help out local families during the holidays really makes you remember that Christmas is truly about giving and caring for others,” she said.