No one wants to be hungry or lacking in what they need, especially at the holidays. According to Hunger in Oklahoma website, almost 15 percent of households in the state are considered food insecure and 67 percent of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP, the old Food Stamps program – participants are children, elderly or disabled. Food insecure children are more likely to have lower reading and math scores, more significant behavior and social problems, and lower high school graduation rates. Several groups of young people are stepping in to take on food insecurity in Blaine County this year.
In Watonga, the FFA officer team is hosting a community wide food drive to fill the Blaine County food pantry shelves. The food drive is in tandem with a competition to find out which grade level can collect the most food. The winning class gets a special breakfast at the first day back to school after the holiday break.
If you don’t have a student at the schools, there are several locations around town where you can drop your donations. Those spots include A to Z Sales (NAPA), Mercy Hospital Watonga, Bank 7, First State Bank and the Watonga Police Department.
And if you are in Calumet, the student council at the school there is also holding a canned food drive. Items collected there remain in the community. Again, there is a competition between grade levels, with the class that collects the most food items receiving an ice cream party.
Students can turn their collections in to their homeroom teacher. The items most needed include canned fruit and vegetables, canned chicken and fish (tuna, ) peanut butter and dried beans, rice and pasta. Other needed items include pantry staples like sugar or flour, oil, spices, formula and baby food. The Calumet drive ends Dec. 8.