BC student food drive nets 27,744 cans

The addition was easy for Bishop Carroll Catholic High School math teacher Jessica Bergman: the students collected at total of 27,744 cans of food for Catholic Charities’ Our Daily Bread Food Pantry.

Although the students fulfilled the first corporal work of mercy thousands of times over, they didn’t have to truck the pallets of canned goods on the final day of the event, Monday, Oct. 28. Star Lumber & Supply supplied the manpower, equipment, and a truck to take the food to the pantry located at 2825 S. Hillside in Wichita.

A BCCHS tradition

The canned food drive has become a tradition at the school, Bergman said. A BCCHS alum of 2001, she remembers taking part in the food drive but had to ask other teachers to find out when the drives began.

“They said 1995 to 1996 was the first year the whole school had an official canned food drive,” Bergman said, adding that some clubs may have sponsored a drive before then.

Different entities at the school have been in charge of the school-wide event in the nearly 40 years since the first drive.

Record set in 2021

This year’s number was the fourth most amount collected since 2016, Bergman said. The highest was in 2021 when 34,540 cans were donated.

“One thing I tried to focus on was getting them to recognize where their donations were going,” she said. “There is an element of competition because the community that brings the most cans, they get an extra sweats day. But this year I really wanted to focus on why we do this.”

To emphasize that, announcements about the drive were made school-wide over the intercom explaining the purpose of the drive and details about Our Daily Bread Food Pantry. In addition, two former BCCHS math teachers, John and Connie Kennedy, who volunteer regularly at the pantry, and two current students who went to the pantry on BCCHS’s Service Day, offered testimonies of their experiences serving at the pantry that were read over the intercom.

“It was good for us as faculty and staff to understand where our donations were going,” Bergman said. “A lot of our parents are alumni and they would have brought cans when they were students. It’s a tradition to have BC do this drive.”

A television news segment about the donation is available at kake.com.