It’s 1:20 p.m. on Thursday, November 21, and Westridge’s Annual Thanksgiving Food Drive for Friends in Deed ends in 40 minutes. I have 200 pasta boxes, soup cans, and peanut butter jars already rolling in the back of my trunk as I zoom over speed bumps on Bellefontaine Street. I’m en route to the local Vons, ready to buy 175 more soup cans.
Rather than preparing for the impending spirit assembly or writing my History essay due that same night, I committed to helping my grade win the Food Drive for the first time in Class of 2025 history. Alongside bringing in my own food, I helped raise over $600 from Westridge seniors and their advisors, taking three trips to Vons, emptying soup shelves, and buying everything from pasta, to pet food, to granola bars.
This year, Westridge’s Upper School rallied together to donate almost 2,400 food items to Friends in Deed; Middle and Lower school donated hundreds more items. In my time at Westridge, the food drive has been a pre-Thanksgiving Break staple and an opportunity for our community to rally together to support the greater Pasadena community and combat food insecurity.
The drive has also acted as an inter-grade competition. The prize? A precious week of free dress in January.
Three years ago, the Class of 2025 appeared to have a comfortable lead heading into the last days of the drive. But as time ticked away, the then-senior class of 2022 exercised their off-campus privileges and won the drive by over 150 items, bringing a total of 598. Devastated by their last-minute comeback, I vowed the Class of 2025 would eventually reach service glory.
Thus I became a service representative with the sole goal to win this elusive victory. After an application and two rounds of interviews, Service & Community Engagement Coordinator Ms. Erica St. John and her squad selected three other freshmen and me to help manage service initiatives on and off campus.
Since 9th grade, I’ve crafted hundreds of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a local food pantry. Along the way, I’ve connected dozens of students with volunteer opportunities—spanning education, civic engagement, and more. I’ve also supported various drives collecting Halloween costumes, candy, books, and other essentials. Yet my competitive heart always leads me back to the Food Drive—where it all began.
In the years between 9th and 12th grade, I eagerly promoted the food drive, bringing jars from home, directing donations to Ms. St. John, and facilitating the popular Food Drive Olympics. Despite my efforts, donations, and the energy of many of my classmates, the Class of 2025 still failed at winning the Thanksgiving Food Drive. I largely blamed our losses on my inability to drive off campus, an advantage the Class of 2022 used to rip the win away from us.
I made that my secret strategy when I eventually became a senior. With one day left in the food drive, we were losing to the sophomores (who were largely supported by Class Dean Ms. Katie Wei ’92). They had brought in 669 items while we had only donated a pathetic 351.
As the sophomores giddily walked around campus, bantering with seniors about their imminent loss, I had a secret: hundreds of food items sat in my trunk, awaiting the senior surprise attack. The day before, I, alongside a few other seniors, had trekked to the store, scanning hundreds of barcodes of individual items to spend the $500 we had raised.
But, our win wasn’t assured. The sophomores brought at least one hundred more cans on that last day, so I made a last-minute effort. Raising a little more than $100, with two friends in the back, I zoomed over to Vons, clearing out the last of their Campbell’s soup cans.
For a moment, Ms. St. John and I were the only people in the entire Westridge community who knew who won the food drive. Many of the sophomores had not realized the influx of food in the senior bin, while the 12th-graders were waiting to hear if their time, energy, and money had yielded victory at last.
But, as I had the privilege of announcing at the first spirit assembly of the year, the Class of 2025 won the food drive, bringing in a total of 1046 items. Not so close behind, the sophomores sat astonished in 2nd place, bringing 892 items.
Senior year is often defined by a series of lasts. I am proud to be a part of this first: a Food Drive Win. Through years and weeks of competition, the Class of 2025 is finally on top, while helping to donate thousands of food items to Friends in Deed.
