The holiday season is a time for families to come together, usually with a lot of food and full of thanks for their well-being. However, some people are not that fortunate, and they struggle every single day, sometimes alone, worrying what and when their next meal will be. Some of those people are students attending San Jacinto College.

For the last three years, North Campus’s Student Engagement and Activities Specialist, Brelyn Donato, helps put together a donation drive to stock the campus’s food pantry in time for Thanksgiving.

Donato and her team encourage students, faculty, and staff to drop off nonperishable food and as added incentive, they reward top donors with a prize for giving back to the community. Last fall’s drive garnered more than four thousand donated items, but Donato said she is raising the bar for this year’s event.

“Our goal is to receive six thousand items this year,” she said.

The food pantry’s doors are already open, and donors wishing to participate in the contest must turn in their contributions by Nov. 15.

“I encourage everyone to help and donate,” Donato said, “because it’ll help some of our students who are in desperate need of food, or are in a financial crisis that cannot provide their family a Thanksgiving meal that they deserve.”

Also, the pantry also accepts monetary donations, but she noted, “We do prefer to receive money donations as a gift card to Walmart, Kroger, HEB, etc.”

Meanwhile, student Tran Banh said helping others provides some much-needed stress relief from midterms and the upcoming holiday season.

“Giving back to community puts me at ease with it all,” Bahn said, “and gives me the extra assurance that everything will be alright.”

Donations for the Thanksgiving Food Drive can be dropped off until Nov. 15 in Room 101 of the Student Center (N12) on the North Campus.