With thousands of children in Seminole County relying on reduced lunches during the school year, many families are left without food when school breaks approach. On March 3, more than 70 members of Key Club gathered in the media center after school in collaboration with the HOPE program, where they decorated bags for children and families in need.

Through community outreach, HOPE’s goal is to reduce hunger and homelessness in Central Florida, with their kids program focusing on aiding children who rely on reduced lunches during summer and other school breaks. In collaboration with Key Club, they gave students the opportunity to decorate bags, which were later used to distribute food and other resources to families over spring break.

“I like how HOPE helps and specifically targets Oviedo communities, so it shows that our volunteering really has an impact,” Key Club president Brenda Maciel said. “By giving the students these bags that they can decorate and give to kids that need help or are in need of different products, it shows that their local high school is involved in giving back to them, so I like closeness.”

Key Club provided 50 brown paper bags for students, as well as markers and colored pencils for students to decorate the bags with. Some students drew on the bags, while others wrote messages for the children.

“I liked being able to draw fun things because I knew it was going to someone who might be struggling or needing help. It’s so much better than just giving it to them blank because it might make them feel just a bit better,” junior Abigail Haas said.

Once members were done decorating, the bags were collected and taken to be later used to provide food to these families. Through HOPE’s food pantry, which relies on outside donations from food drives, families registered with the program can stop at HOPE helps where they are supplied with a weeks worth of food. The kids of HOPE program supplies a total of 13 weeks worth of food to struggling families for the 13 weeks in which school is out.

“It takes many people working together to make it happen in the community,” Key Club sponsor Nitza Ariza said. “They decorate the bags, and other people actually go there and volunteer, just passing them out, so it makes an impact in the community, because everybody helps for the goal of helping someone in need.”

Continuing in its community outreach, the Key Club is hosting a river cleanup March 8, where students will work from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to remove trash from Econ River.