From November 3 to November 21, the annual Friends in Deed Food Drive was held as an effort to donate food to the nonprofit organization Friends in Deed. Every year, the Westridge Service Representatives and Upper School Service Coordinator Ms. Erica St. John plan the food drive and collect donations from the Westridge community. This year, Upper School students donated a record amount of donations, with over 2,000 food items donated.

In the three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving Break, each week had a specific theme for donations. For the first week, students were asked to donate breakfast items such as granola bars and cereal boxes. Jars of peanut butter and jelly were collected throughout the second week, and the theme for the third week was canned foods, including soups and beans.

Typically, the food drive serves as a competition between Upper School grades to see who can donate the most items to win a week of free dress and give back to the community. Because the drive was a competition, it pushed grades to come together to win. Senior Service Representative Mena J. said that the food drive “was nice, because it was just spontaneous, and it definitely is a chance to bond with your classmates.”

By the end of the first week of the drive, the senior class of 2026 was in the lead with 575 food items, followed by 92 items from the juniors, 51 from the sophomores, and 18 from the freshmen. During the second week, the juniors stepped up their game, totaling 298 food items donated, but they were still a few hundred behind the seniors, who reached 765 items by the end of the second week. Before the end of the drive, Ms. St. John said, “I think this senior class is going to go down as the class that collects the most food items since we started the food drive.”

Junior Isabelle Y. agreed, saying that the “seniors are just on a whole other level.” She added not remembering any of the drives being “this competitive” in the past. 

During the drive, even teachers made an attempt to encourage grade levels to donate. Some of the email threads advertising the drive included words of encouragement such as, “Let’s do this, Juniors!” from Upper School English Teacher and Junior Class Dean Ms. Katie Wei and a passionate, “No way, my seniors ALL THE WAY!” from Upper School Art Teacher and Senior Advisor Ms. Lorri Deyer. 

While most of the competition was between the juniors and seniors, the underclassmen were slightly more timid with their donations. By the end of the second week, the sophomores gathered a total of 94 items, while the freshmen ended with 37 items. “I think an issue right now is the fact that juniors and seniors are so competitive with each other that freshmen and sophomores might not feel like they ever have a chance of winning,” said Senior Service Representative Nina K. 

Because of the recurring pattern of sophomores and freshmen contributing less than the seniors, Nina and the other Upper School Service Representatives wanted to more effectively promote the food drive. To advertise the drive, the service representatives set up signs and handed out flyers during carline. In previous years, some of the strategies the service representatives used to encourage donations included holding a Food Drive Olympics, which included scavenger hunts and box-lifting games. Nina said, “That was really fun, a little impractical, but really fun still. I feel like having more of those events is something we definitely need to work on.” 

Service Representative Mady K. ’27 had mentioned the food drive being a competition as a way to branch out and work together to win and help out those who were affected by the SNAP benefits being cut. “I think it’s a good thing to give back to our community right now,” she said. 

The food drive finished with a total of 91 items from the freshmen, 292 from the sophomores, 1,039 from the juniors, and a whopping 2,271 from the seniors. In addition to donating food, the seniors donated $500 to the Friends in Deed organization. “In the 10 years I’ve been at Westridge, we’ve never collected this much food,” Ms. St. John announced in the email regarding the end of the drive. She even mentioned in the email that some of the donations went to other food banks since there had been too many donations for Friends in Deed to take. The food drive was a fun way for students to collaborate as a team and donate to a good cause.