Local students have kicked off an annual food drive with a record number of donations goal in mind.

Howell Public Schools, through the organization of Howell High School’s leadership classes are in the middle of a district-wide campaign to help put food on the tables of the less-fortunate in Livingston County. Their goal is collect 30,000 cans to support Gleaner’s Food Bank. Last year, the food drive gathered 22,000 cans, which equated to nearly 9-and-a-half tons of food. That was enough for over 15,000 meals for families in the county.

According to Feeding America and the Meal Gap project, 14,000 residents of Livingston County face food insecurities. Food-insecurity refers to the United States Department of Agriculture’s measure of lack of access to enough food at times for an active, healthy life for household members. Households like this are not necessarily food insecure all of the time, and it may be a reflection of the need to make tradeoffs between nutritional food and other basic needs like housing or medical bills.

Donation boxes are located in each Howell Public Schools building. Monetary donations can be made online at http://www.gcfb.org/howell_public_schools.

The canned food drive runs through Friday, December 7th. (MK)