To kick off community service week, Community Council, the Student Mental Health Association and Joy Market club collaborated for a canned goods drive on Dec. 1.
Student Mental Health Association member Alli Firtel ’27 said that the drive supported multiple organizations.
“The canned food drive was organized in collaboration with the Harvard Westlake Student Mental Health Association, Joy Market and Community Council,” Firtel said. “This was an event to both raise awareness and support for the homeless in L.A., especially around Thanksgiving, when it is important to be grateful for what we have and give back to others in need.”
Joy Market leader Max Lee ’27 said that Joy Market is collaborating with an outside organization to make use of the donated canned goods.
“Joy Market will be taking the cans and bringing them to an organization that could benefit from them,” Lee said. “We’re partnering with an organization in K-Town called Korean American Family Services (KFAM) and what they do is provide foster family services and adoption care. We are distributing the cans to this service, and then KFAM is giving them out to foster families and other families partnered through their system. ”
Reagan Shibuya said that although the drive initially was scheduled for earlier, ultimately this delay benefited those organizing the event.
“The can drive was interesting because it was cancelled after it was originally scheduled to be able to donate the food in time for Thanksgiving,” Shibuya said. “Overall it ended up working out because now there’s more time for us to collect cans, but there was definitely some difficulty in collecting donations for the cans we purchased on our own just because we unfortunately weren’t able to get Chipotle as we had intended.”
The school also hosted a pie-eating competition, where students across grade levels see who can eat a piece of pumpkin pie the fastest. Sally Ramberg ’26 said she was able to contribute to the drive’s competition.
“I purchased the pies for the pie-eating contest,” Ramberg said. “The donations go to KFAM, which helps underserved Korean families and Korean foster kids.”
Mateo Atluri ’27 said the drive was a collaborative effort.
“This was a triple joint effort between Community Council, SMHA and Joy Market Club,” Atluri said. “While this drive was originally an idea within Community Council, SMHA came to us with a proposal for a joint collaboration, and it was a great idea.”
