By Amanda Raymond

amanda.raymond@salisburypost.com

Around this time of year, many individuals and organizations are collecting donations for local food banks and charities. One of those organizations charities can count on is schools.

Many schools organize donation drives to collect canned goods and other items for local nonprofits. For some charitable organizations, those donations are a big part of their ability to help the community.

Captain NaKisha Carr, corps officer for the Salvation Army of Rowan County, said donations from schools are about 85-90 percent of their stock.

“It’s the difference in us having money to help the services throughout the year or exhausting all of our bell ringing and income on canned goods for those families,” she said.

From working in Rowan County for four months, Carr said she has already seen how important those donations are.

“If every little kid in the Rowan-Salisbury School District took their two little hands and grabbed two canned goods … and put them in their backpack, that would just do so much,” she said.

Kris Mueller, director of resource development at Rowan Helping Ministries, said donations from schools are at least 10 percent of their holiday donations.

Not only do students donate food for the Rowan Helping Ministries, but they also donate their time by volunteering.

Kyna Grubb, executive director of Rowan Helping Ministries, said college students who are at home for holiday breaks often volunteer and intern for the organization. Different school groups also volunteer by packaging dried beans and rice or putting together U.S. Department of Agriculture packages.

Mueller said almost all of the high schools in the area have done some type of project to help them, whether it was a canned food drive or cooking and serving meals at their facility.

Grubb also said she has seen more children accept food donations instead of presents at birthday parties.

“We just had food dropped off last week from a 14-year-old who brought in 247 pounds of food,” she said. “So instead of presents, she was able to feed five families for a week.”

Mueller said the need for donations increases this time of year because of families desiring to prepare the traditional big Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

“This is the time of year when everybody is thinking about giving, but it’s also a time when we see the needs go up because folks who are struggling to make ends meet are also trying to prepare meals for families,” she said.

Anne Corriher, executive director for Main Street Mission, said although she has seen a little bit of a decrease in holiday donations over the years, donations definitely peak in November and December and run low in the summer months.

“We kind of know that if we get those (donations) then we can survive through the rest of the year and it makes it a lot easier for us,” she said.

And some students might not realize that the people they are donating to might be sitting right next to them.

Carr said students should have the mindset that “me helping out with the canned food drive is helping to provide Christmas dinner for the kid who sits next to me, for the kid who’s in my class, the kid that rides the bus with me.”

Carr, Grubb, Mueller and Corriher all said they were thankful for the effort and time students and schools put in to donate to their organizations.

“What is great is you’re seeing children are learning to give back in both the food drive efforts and in coming and volunteering,” Grubb said.

Contact reporter Amanda Raymond at 704-797-4222.