Last month the Science Department and Peer Assistance in Leadership (PALs) class held a drive to collect and donate canned foods and non-perishable items to families of students who are in need. The students collected enough cans to give 50 families two bags of food each, and they still had enough left over to send to food banks.

“This is an annual event,” PALs teacher Nancy Lewis said. “The Plano West kids are very generous.”

The physics department came up with the idea to have PALs find a way to utilize the canned foods into a charity event.

“Every year the science department teams up with PALs to incorporate the cans into the curriculum,” Lewis said.

The physics department asked their students to bring in cans to practice conversions. The process of collecting, checking and separating types of food was an ongoing task throughout the whole drive.

“It took a week to get the cans in,” senior Jeet Zalavadia said. “We are still working on the distributing. It’s a work in progress.”

The distribution process could not begin until all items were checked for their expiration dates and organized into reusable bags.

“We started organizing them by type of food,” senior Paayal Jagada said. “It’s a lot to do, especially because so many people donated.”

Although this charity event is almost over, PALs has more plans to help others, especially during this holiday time.

“We’re working on something new for the holidays with kids whose families can’t afford items during the season,” Jagada said. “We always have three or four projects going on.”