By Matthew Kelly ‘22
On December 15, members of the Saint Ignatius community will be invited to the 82nd Rini Family Christmas Food Drive Basket Delivery. The day starts with Mass at 8:30, followed by breakfast in Rade Dining Hall and ends with the famous distribution of hundreds of food baskets to Cleveland families. The day is the perfect end to over six weeks of hard work from the Food Drive Core Team. The Core Team, made up of around 100 students who meet on Tuesdays after school, help organize the thousands of food item donations collected, assemble hundreds of baskets to be delivered, and encourage over 1600 students to participate in this outstanding event.
To get a deeper look at the drive and what it means to the people of our school, I talked to Mr. Cosgriff of the finance office, who was a part of the team this year. This is his 5th year of being involved with the food drive, and he became involved to get a chance to work with the students and the community and to contribute to the great cause. His favorite part of the food drive is interacting with the students who help organize the baskets and all the students who deliver their homerooms’ donations. Mr. Cosgriff told me that he thinks two of the reasons the food drive is such a grand tradition at our school is the sheer volume of the donations and the many who look forward to receiving the baskets. He also told me that this year, for the first time, the seniors will be delivering around 250 baskets on Friday in an effort to lighten the load of baskets that would have to be delivered on Saturday. Still, 450 food baskets will be delivered on the community delivery day.
The food drive will be another success this year thanks to the hard work from the Core Team, above-and-beyond participation from the student body, and continued support from the Saint Ignatius community.
