Tuscarora Key Club Canned Food Drive
by Andrew Taverner, Key Club Member

Bags, boxes, and cans littered tables, desks, and the floor of the science lab in Tuscarora High School. Upon entering the science lab, one cannot help thinking that one might have inadvertently stumbled upon the fabled hidden-grocery-store of Tuscarora.

The members of Tuscarora High School Key Club perform service projects all year, but right now, food is especially important. Steffi Yen, president of the Tuscarora chapter of Key Club says, "Right now...lots of families are in need and the food banks...are completely depleted of food."

The students had their most successful canned food drive ever, collecting over 2000 cans in the first week. This surpasses the 800 cans they collected last year and the 2000 cans the year before. The students collected over 4400 cans for the Kids Helping Kids, Maryland State Department of Education's food drive over a three week span. The canned food drive was so successful due to a large amount of school spirit and some friendly competition between the teachers. "The competition between several of the teachers got pretty serious," said Key Club editor, Andrew Taverner. In the end, Bradley Gray won the canned food drive, for the third year in a row, beating the runner up, Matt Schumacher, by a mere eight points.

Our sponsoring club, the Kiwanis Club of Suburban Frederick, surprised us by donating a dozen bags of food when we recently visited a club meeting. Pictured left (l to r kneeling) Key Club members Andrew Taverner, Kate Felton, Pres. Steffi Yen, and Div 9 Key Club LTG Marvin Gee. Not pictured is Key Clubber Autumn Bordner. Standing are Suburban Frederick members Christing Semon and Bill Muffi.

The canned food drive was featured on channel 18, the local Frederick County Public School channel. Looking to the future, the Tuscarora Key Club is planning to participate in the annual Kiwanis gift-wrapping. Steffi said, "I speak for all of us when I say that it's our favorite Key Club project."