Starting this school year, the MSHSL (Minnesota State High School League) will be teaming up with Second Harvest Heartland to make this holiday season a bit more festive. Based out of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Second Harvest Heartland is a food bank that partners with volunteers and organizations to help provide meals for people in need.

High schools throughout Minnesota that will be participating in the state football semi-finals, OHS included, received an invitation to join Second Harvest Heartland and the MSHSL in the new “Sack Hunger” campaign. Each day throughout the campaign week will be themed, where students and staff are able to bring in a wide variety of non-perishable food items, as well as household necessities like brand new cleaning products and toiletries. The school with the most donations will be publicly recognized by the MSHSL and Second Harvest Heartland as the champion hunger fighters of Minnesota.

Joining this new campaign is not mandatory. However, events like this are a great way for students to get involved in something much larger than themselves. Mrs. Sandra Justice is the student council adviser and “Sack Hunger” supervisor. Justice said, “It’s about helping your classmates and feeling good about yourself. Our goal is to help people understand that it doesn’t have to be big things you do to have a big impact.” Working together to support the community can be beneficial to everyone, sophomore Tad Johnson said, “The food drive is an opportunity for kids to support those around them.” All items collected over the course of the week will either be donated to the local food shelf or distributed to eligible students here at OHS. Members of the community can drop items off at the schools front security desk or send them with an OHS Student or staff.