online edition

The Student Newspaper of Hopkins School

    • Juniors fundraise outside Nica's Market (photo: Donasia Gray).

The Original "Canned" Food Drive

Kristina Yarovinsky '18 Features editor
When Hopkins first began helping the Connecticut Food Bank decades ago, fundraising as we know it today did not exist. Until the twenty-first century, the goal of the annual Food Drive was to gather non-perishables from families and friends of the Hopkins community.
History teacher Scott Wich ’89 said, “The Canned Food Drive wasn’t really a thing when I was a student graduating in 1989. [It was] nothing like the school-wide, class-by-class, all-hands-on-deck, competitive campaign that we have today. The collections were mostly from relatives, families, and other Hopkins community members, and they mostly consisted of cans and other non-perishable foodstuffs.”
 
English teacher Donna Fasano ’68 said, “I remember participating in the Canned Food Drive and lugging in shopping bags filled with cans. The cans were kept at school and then given to the Food Bank.  The can count was tallied and noted on a graph. [It was] all hand-drawn and quite different from what we do now.”

The first version of the fundraising that we recognize nowadays began in the late 1990s in the form of “Supermarket Days.” Dozens of students gathered off-campus, wore the Goat costume, and asked for canned food donations to the Connecticut Food Bank. 

Fasano said, “We would ask [shoppers entering supermarkets] to buy extra cans, and they would come out of the store with a separate bag of cans for us.”

In a less-popular approach, students also collected donations to “purchase” food from the Connecticut Food Bank: one dollar was worth five cans.

Starting around 2000, the Connecticut Food Bank began a gradual transition to fresh produce instead of non-perishables, and the Food Bank recommended that organizations collect funds instead of non-perishable foodstuffs. On account of this, “Supermarket Day” donations transitioned from cans to monetary donations.

In addition to fundraising, Hopkins developed in-school traditions for the Food Drive, such as raffles and pizza sales. Class presidents also held Two-dollar Tuesdays, where students each brought two dollars, proving that even a small contribution has a big effect.

Math teacher Michael Gold ’10 said, “I mostly participated by spending the occasional weekend fundraising. While the Connecticut Food Drive was always important, I don’t remember it being as hyped as it is now.”

For nearly all of the years of the Connecticut Food Drive, grades competed against each other to raise the most funds. However, it wasn’t until 2014 that the grades counted effort instead of results when the Student Council asked each grade to tally hours spent fundraising instead of dollars raised.

Currently, the Canned Food Drive is a highly-organized event. Hopkins collects an increasing sum of money for the Connecticut Food Bank every year. In 1998, the freshman class shattered a previous record by collecting $1,922. In contrast, the winning grade of 2015 set a record by raising $36,253.

Junior Class President Donasia Gray said, “I believe the CFD has progressed in terms of the different events, such as Yule Ball, waffle sales, the Haunted House, and Can Jam, that have been created with the purpose of raising money for the CFD. They give us a chance to be innovative while having fun as a school and supporting a local cause.”
Back
Editor in Chief 
Rose Robertson

Managing Editor 
Hanna Jennings

News
Sophie Denny
Eli Ratner
Anya Mahajan
Claire Billings
Abigail Rakotomavo
Features
Anika Madan
Mira Krichavsky
Sarvin Bhagwagar
Rania Das
Eric Roberts
 
Arts
Shriya Sakalkale
Grace Laliberte
Jo Reymond
Ilana Lewitton
Anvi Pathak
Op/Ed
Teddy Witt
Asher Joseph
Rain Zeng
Miri Levin
Edel Lee

Sports
Amir McFerren
Maggie Russell
Samantha Bernstein
Hana Beauregard
Karun Srihari
Editors-at-Large
Connor Tomasulo
Bar Avraham
Alex Lopez
Chloe Wang

Cartoonists
Hailey Willey
Web Editors
Brayden Gray
Amelia Hudonogov

Faculty Advisers
Stephen May
Elizabeth Gleason
Shanti Madison
The Razor's Edge reflects the opinion of 4/5 of the editorial board and will not be signed. The Razor welcomes letters to the editor but reserves the right to decide which letters to publish, and to edit letters for space reasons. Unsigned letters will not be published, but names may be withheld on request. Letters are subject to the same libel laws as articles. The views expressed in letters are not necessarily those of the editorial board.
     
The Razor,
 an open forum publication, is published monthly during the school year by students of: 
Hopkins School
986 Forest Road
New Haven, CT 06515

Phone: 203.397.1001 x628
Email: smay@hopkins.edu