With the halfway point of the school year in the past and spring approaching, the 8th Grade Community Projects at the Pelham Middle School are beginning to reach their action phase. The groups have been working on their projects since November and are finally seeing their hard work in school and outside of school pay off. I am an 8th grader at PMS myself, and I too am working on a community project with my partners Jonah and Lukas. Our community project is working on fighting food insecurity in Westchester County. Food insecurity is a very serious issue in the world today, with an estimated 1.3 billion people projected as food insecure. Without access to good amounts of clean food, mental and physical health suffers and risk of long-term health issues increases dramatically. Our group has several things planned to help tackle this issue, and we have done a lot of research to figure out the best ways to fight against food insecurity.

Our plan is to:

–Hold a food drive. One we planned to help battle food insecurity is to hold a food drive. Not only does it raise some awareness for our cause, it also raises food which will go to people that are food insecure. The food drive will be held at Manor Market, beginning on March 5th and ending on March 11th. Non-perishable goods, such as soups and canned foods, are required. Food must also be non-expired and unopened. The proceeds will go to the Hope Soup Kitchen in New Rochelle. 

–Volunteer. Not only do we plan to raise food for the Hope Soup Kitchen, we are going to volunteer there as well. About once a month for three months, all three people in our group will go to the Hope Soup Kitchen and volunteer. Getting food to people who don’t have enough is essential, and that is what the Hope Soup Kitchen is all about. Volunteering even for just an hour might not seem like much, but it makes a huge difference.

–Spread awareness. The most important thing we can do to fight food insecurity is to raise awareness, to tell people that this is a huge issue that impacts people around the world today, including in Westchester County and in the town of Pelham. The more people know about this issue, the more people will help fight food insecurity and help bring this issue to an end. Spreading flyers around Pelham to spread awareness is one way we plan to spread awareness. However, our main method of spreading awareness about this issue is the article that you are reading.

When we were deciding what we would do for our community project, we had some tough decisions to make. We had a lot of ideas for things we could do, things involving issues that meant a lot to each of us. But in the end, we decided to fight food insecurity because food is a basic necessity of every human being. Without proper access to food, it is impossible to live a healthy and happy life. Fighting food insecurity and making sure that everybody has the food that they need is one of the most important issues facing humanity today.