The Spanish Honors Society (SHS) is working with St. Vincent de Paul, which operates the Amazing Grace Food pantry and the St Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen, in Middletown Connecticut, to collect healthy food for families in need. 

SHS has placed cardboard boxes in every classroom for students to donate canned goods and dry, low sugar cereals, but the Honors Society has said they will take anything they get. There will be reminders in the daily announcements and SHS members will be announcing the amount of food we have collected at the end of each week. The drive will run until the end of February and the winning homeroom will win Neil’s donuts. 

The food pantry itself is placed in the north end neighborhood in Middletown. According to their website, they reportedly feed 800 different families and are open two days a week. Volunteers and other staff help people determine if they ¨qualify for other social service programs.¨

Jimmy Macholm, a Coginchaug graduate who is the development assistant at St. Vincent de Paul and is working with the honors society, says ¨physically it’s starting to…look a bit more like a grocery store and a bit more of a normal experience.¨ They want to progress the food pantry to focus less on stigmatization and focus more on ¨real experience with sustenance and nutrition.¨

William Kurtz, an English teacher at Coginchaug, says that ¨it’s a really important initiative because food insecurity is at an all time high right now…there is a massive operation to get food right now.¨

(The author of this piece is a member of SHS)