It’s a high school auditorium used for plays and student events, and a venue for community concerts. This week, the Everett Civic Auditorium served a higher purpose.
Monday morning, its aisles were filled with cardboard boxes. Canned goods and other groceries were stacked near the stage. Signs posted along the walls listed household staples: Cereal and pasta, crackers and condiments, rice and stuffing, paper products and baby items.
“It’s my favorite day of the year at Everett High,” said Keith Corning, technical director for the auditorium, an Everett School District facility.
Corning’s favorite day is the culmination of Everett High School’s annual food drive. Since Halloween, students have been outside grocery stores collecting food for people needing help through the holidays. The drive is organized by the school’s leadership class, but every class participates.
On Monday, students brought donated goods into the auditorium, a staging area for the food drive delivery day. For weeks — in rain and wind, through evenings and weekends — kids had been collecting food. By Tuesday, they were packing carloads of nonperishable food along with turkeys and pies to be delivered to more than 200 families in need.
Everett High Principal Sally Lancaster said the school works in partnership with Volunteers of America Western Washington. The agency, which oversees food banks in Everett and other area communities, matches the school with families that have applied and been approved for assistance.
Along with turkeys, pies and other makings for a Thanksgiving meal, deliveries include enough nonperishable items to stock the families’ pantries for two weeks. Recipients also get $20 Safeway gift cards, which can’t be used for tobacco or alcohol but may be used for gas. Turkeys are purchased by church groups and through other donations.
Lancaster said about 40 families of Everett High students are helped by the program. For those families, deliveries are made by members of the nonprofit Blue &Gold Club, an Everett High alumni and community group that provides discreet assistance to students from low-income families.
The Blue &Gold Club also serves a big breakfast to student helpers on food delivery day. Collected goods not needed for the 200-plus families are donated to Everett’s St. Vincent de Paul food bank or to Everett High’s own food bank. Lancaster said the school’s backpack program provides weekend supplies of food to students with limited resources. Baby items will be donated to Housing Hope, which provides low-income housing countywide.
“The leadership class is rooted in service,” said Shelly Waller, Everett High’s leadership teacher for a dozen years. About 60 teens, sophomores through seniors, are enrolled in the class, but every Everett High student may join in the food drive.
“This is the project that is most connected to our community,” said Cameron Blas, an 18-year-old senior and leadership student. The food drive had students asking shoppers for donations outside Everett Safeway stores, the Trader Joe’s store on Everett Mall Way, and some QFC and Haggen stores.
Sylvia Maglaqui, 16, said the effort cut into study time, but the Everett High junior saw real-life lessons while collecting groceries. Some shoppers avoided the pitch for donations, but many were incredibly generous. While collecting outside Trader Joe’s, Maglaqui said, one woman went to a nearby dollar store and returned with a cart full of items.
Blas remembers making a delivery right before Thanksgiving last year. Along with dinner, he brought a box of baby food and a six-month supply of diapers. “It was a mom with three babies. She started crying,” he said.
Giving adds meaning to Thanksgiving.
“I’m very lucky for what I have,” Blas said.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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