PHOTO PROVIDED Jersey Shore FBLA students stand in front of a bulletin board in the high school being used for their community service project. The students are collecting various holiday foods for the New Love Center in Jersey Shore.

JERSEY SHORE — From Nov. 1 to Nov. 30, the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter from Jersey Shore Area Senior High School will be hosting a district wide food drive in conjunction with the Jersey Shore Education Foundation.

The group will be collecting various holiday foods, such as cranberry sauce, stuffing, corn and green beans, which will be donated to the New Love Center in Jersey Shore.

Along with the New Love Center, the Jersey Shore FBLA chapter will be taking the donations and packaging them into holiday meal boxes for families in need. They have set a goal to fill all 500 meal boxes after all of the donations have been collected.

They are asking students, parents, faculty and staff to donate specific items to contribute to the boxes, and they are also asking for donations from local businesses and individuals for chickens to include in each box.

Salladasburg Elementary and Avis Elementary are each working on 500 boxes of stuffing; Jersey Shore Elementary has a goal of 1,000 cans of green beans; Jersey Shore Middle School will bring in 1,000 cans of gravy; Jersey Shore Senior High School will be in charge of 1,000 cans of corn, and finally, the faculty and staff will be responsible for 500 containers of cranberry sauce and can also donate money for chickens.

If any business, families, or individuals would like to donate $5 for a chicken, they can contact the FBLA adviser, Mrs. Dolly Oden, at doden@jsasd.org.

The collection of the donations from the various schools will be occurring on Dec. 4, and all food will be taken to First United Methodist Church in Jersey Shore. Transportation for this event will be provided by Marden’s. On Dec. 5, the FBLA members will return to First United Methodist Church to fill the 500 holiday boxes where they will be distributed.

JS FBLA would like to spur community engagement through our social media campaign, as well as posters for businesses who support the food drive. Several posts and updates about the food drive’s progress will be made on our chapter’s social media sites to show others in the community what the project is and the goals they are working toward. The hashtag #weSHOREcare will be used on all posts to connect them, and that way other individuals on the social media sites can also use the hashtag to help promote the food drive.

FBLA will be asking for as much community involvement and school district support as possible to make this a successful project, and to make the holidays a little merrier for all families in Jersey Shore.