Tri Star Classes Start The Holiday Giving With Canned Food Drive

19,144 ...
It's a record number of canned food/non perishable items collected or purchased for the Annual Canned Food drive here at the 'new' Tri Star building. The highest number of canned goods ever donated was in 2018 when over 20,000 cans were collected. At that time, five programs at the St. Marys Dennings Building (one of Tri Star's old facilities), brought in the record number of goods. This year juniors and seniors from 10 programs - REC Tech, Construction, IT/Cybersecurity, Ag. Industrial Tech., Career Pathways, Engineering, Welding, Med Prep, Teaching Professions, and Graphic Communications - had a hand in donating and/or collecting money to purchase the 19,144 canned goods.

Senior Tri Star students delivered the goods to two local food pantries: the Agape Food Pantry in St. Marys and CALL Ministries in Celina. They chose to donate to the two different pantries because the students who attend Tri Star come from both Mercer and Auglaize County schools and they wanted to make sure that families from both counties were helped.

The food drive serves as a community service project for several student organizations and is a great way for the students to learn about giving back to their community.

According to records provided by REC Tech instructor, Jerry Kohnen ... juniors donated 10,865 items while seniors donated 8,279. The class that donated the most items was the junior welding class but the REC Tech juniors brought in the most per student. Each of the eight REC Tech juniors donated an average of 328.75 items.

Thank you Tri Star students who participated in this wonderful event. We are grateful for your hard work and generosity. Thank you to all the Tri Star Instructors who helped coordinate this worthwhile food drive.