Emery NHS-Tikkun Olam Thanksgiving Day Project at the Houston Food Bank

Emery students volunteered at the Houston Food Bank the day before Thanksgiving, to give back to the people in need during this holiday. The Houston Food Bank is an organization that distributes fresh produce, meat, and nonperishables and prepares nutritious hot meals for kids in our state-of-the-art Keegan Kitchen.

The food bank is a certified member of Feeding America, the nation’s food bank network. About 104,000,000 meals are distributed annually, which feeds about 800,000 people. Most people depend on organizations like these to feed their families, so Emery was fortunate to help out those in need. The students got to spend their mornings packing meals and sorting out food, so they can go to families who needed food for Thursday. A total of four hours was spent creating boxes, collecting food, and packages the meals, such as canned pumpkin, green beans, rice, pecans, corn, that would feed many people the next day.

About 80 students from the Emery upper school were there Wednesday morning helping out. Sophomore Julia Danziger says, “I loved volunteering at the food bank because it gave me a chance to give back to my community and it makes me happy knowing that I helped families have an amazing Thanksgiving with plenty of warm delicious food.”

Packing food and learning about the families in need, made the students feel thankful they had the opportunity to help others this holiday. The Tikkun Olam club that organizes all the volunteering at Emery, spent weeks planning this event, and they were very impressed with the turnout. They have worked with the food bank many times before, and plan to continue the tradition of helping out the food bank every Thanksgiving.