Food is fuel, food drive kids remind us

Five hundred and six pounds of food, 101 families, 13 students and one food drive.

During the month of March, Mountain View High School teacher Jena Hayenga, along with her Leadership class, held a food drive for the Rathdrum Food Bank. Since the food at the food bank was becoming scarce, Hayenga decided it was a good time to take action and help those in need.

While on a trip to the food bank, Mountain View students learned how truly important the food bank is to families in Idaho. Just in 2014 the food bank has helped more than 500 individuals, averaging out to about 156 families in need. The students also learned that some of the money going toward buying the food graciously comes out of the pockets of those who volunteer there when things get tight, which is why it is so important to have organizations help them fill their shelves with food.

The first step of action for Hayenga's Leadership class was to hold a food drive competition among students at Mountain View. The next step was reaching out to the community for help and support. Bags were hung on doorknobs all over the neighborhoods of Rathdrum. On these bags were optional instructions asking residents to fill the bags with any food of their choice and  a Mountain View representative would come by to pick them up at a later date. In the end, between the school and the community, Mountain View students were able to gather 506 pounds of food for the Rathdrum food bank. This surpassed the food bank's goal of 500 pounds. Paige Martin, a student at Mountain View, raised 105 pounds alone for the food bank.

"I honestly only thought we would get one, maybe two, bags from the community. People usually just ignore these types of things. It was eye opening and a restoration of my faith in humanity to see how many bags we ended up with from the community alone," said Donnie Mathews, a student at Mountain View. "I am truly blown away with how much Rathdrum cares."

Although the food drive for the community and school are over and the food has been delivered, Mountain View isn't done yet. Hayenga partnered with Stein's Market to help gather more food. Stein's will allow Mountain View students to put up a trifold presentation, and agreed to put together a $5 meal bag for customers to buy in order to help feed families in need. Each bag contains one can of soup, one vegetable, one fruit, one box of crackers, and one macaroni and cheese.

"We are extremely thankful to Stein's - it's been a wonderful experience to work with them. They care so much about the community and are so great at giving back," said Hayenga. "I really couldn't be more grateful to them for all their help and participation."

Rachel Sevier attends Mountain View High School in Rathdrum.