The National Honor Society hosted a “Soup-er Bowl” can drive before school from Feb. 2 to Feb. 6 to collect cans for the University of Missouri-Kansas City food pantry. 

The drive was organized by the UMKC Honors Program, and various National Honor Society Chapters in Kansas and Missouri host the drives at their schools. 

The drive at the school was coordinated by NHS Officer Maddie Martin, who did so because she thought it would benefit the community. 

“Drives like these are so important because, despite what students at the school may observe or see every day, there are so many people in the area who are in need,” Martin said. “Food pantries such as the one we are donating to make a huge difference in the lives of those people.” 

Junior Natalie Long, who worked the table for two days, also thinks food drives help all people.
“These drives are a win win for everyone,” Long said. “We get service opportunities, and we also get to help a lot of people with our donations.” 

At the end of the week, the drive ended up raising 550 cans for the food pantry. Martin said getting people to donate was the easiest part of organizing the drive.  

“Everyone was really eager to bring in cans, and everyone who did brought a lot of cans, which really helped raise as many as we did,” Martin said.

Because the drive raised so many cans, the most challenging part was transporting the cans to the food pantry. 

“There were over 500 cans I had to organize, count and move so they could be delivered,” Martin said. “Luckily, Agre let us use the book room to store them and had carts to move them.”

Due to the success of the can drive, Martin hopes that the school’s NHS chapter continues it in the future. 

“We didn’t really have a goal in mind, but this definitely surpassed my expectations,” Martin said. “I really hope this drive is something that our NHS Chapter continues in the future because it was so successful.”