The students at Mack Lyon Middle School got off to an early start in helping neighbors in need for the holidays. The school’s student council worked with Overton Power District 5 (OPD5) to organize this annual food drive to replenish the food pantry at Cappalappa Family Resource Center in Overton.

The food drive had local middle schoolers bringing in non-perishable food donations by the boxload during the week of Sept. 22-27. By the end of that week, it was the school’s seventh-grade class that had collected the most food donations. For their enthusiastic participation, the class was treated to a pizza party courtesy of OPD5.

On Tuesday morning, Sept. 30, members of OPD5 staff arrived at the school to pick up all the donations. Student council members helped load the back of two pickup trucks full of food items. The OPD5 personnel then delivered all of these items directly to the food pantry at Cappalappa FRC.

“There is a large group of local people who are dependent on our services, especially at this upcoming time of year,” said Cappalappa FRC administrator Penny Vallone. “Our food bank comes, 100%, from local donations. So we really do appreciate OPD5 working with the local schools in these efforts. It’s a great help in our work of serving the community.”

OPD5 public outreach coordinator Kristi Eames pointed out that this is the 14th year the district has teamed up with local school kids for this food drive. She expressed surprise at how much food the Mack Lyon students had managed to gather in such a short period of time.

“It is always good working with Mack Lyon because they are well-organized and they get the job done,” Eames said. “Even with their drive coming relatively early in the season and it only going for one week, those kids gathered a lot of food! We are grateful for that, and we were happy to be a part of it.”

The OPD5 food drive will continue later on this month. Per tradition, the district will team up in similar efforts at the other schools in both the Moapa and Virgin Valleys.

The drive will open again on Oct. 20 and continue through Nov. 14. During that time, students and community members are encouraged to bring non-perishable food donations to one of several locations, including Grant Bowler Elementary, Ute Perkins Elementary, JL Bowler Elementary, Virgin Valley Elementary, Charles Hughes Middle School, Virgin Valley High School and Moapa Valley High School. Donations will also be collected at the offices of OPD5 in either Mesquite or Overton.

All donations to this drive will benefit the food banks at Cappalappa FRC and the Virgin Valley Food Bank.