District-wide Jack Emery food drive is unified effort in service to our community

Student leaders at Milpitas High School hosted the 2019 Jack Emery Brunch on Nov. 5 to kick off the annual district-wide canned food drive that helps to feed about 4,000 local families throughout the year at the Milpitas Food Pantry.

“This has really made such a huge difference in our community,” said Executive Director Karen Kolander, who shared that these donations help stock the Pantry with enough canned goods to feed needy families for “almost the entire year.”

MHS Associated Student Body President Jessica Uyehara instructed staff and students representing each of the school sites on how the food drive works. A packet was handed out to help guide participants through the process. The drive runs from November 18 through December 11.

“I’m really proud of how everything turned out. The decorations are nice and the food tastes good. We have more guests this year than we had last year,” said Uyehara of the kickoff event that served 120 guests from school sites, the district office, board of education and local business community.

“This (brunch) is a way for our student leaders to connect with all the different schools to kick off the Jack Emery food drive,” said MHS Activities Director Jerell Maneja of the well-attended brunch. “They share the procedures, important calendar dates and how it should look at each of the sites.”

Key Point Credit Union jump-started the festivities with a $150 donation toward the food drive.

Senior Tanya Saharan is MHS’s Student Site Leader for the food drive, setting a goal to eclipse 20,000 cans this year.

“Right now, I’m a little nervous. I’ve been preparing for this for a long time,” said Saharan, who noted that each school site sets their own goals for the food drive.
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Brian Shreve, Director of Maintenance, Operations & Transportation, explained that his employees volunteer their time to collect the donated cans from each site and deliver them to the Pantry. They will collect more than 1,000 boxes from the various sites by the end of the drive.

Spangler Elementary School Principal Luis Lopez enjoys brunch with some of his students at Tuesday's Jack Emery Brunch inside the Milpitas High School library.