By Nathan Fu | Entertainment Editor

On November 28, Irvington’s three biggest service clubs Interact, Key, and Leo Club came together for their annual canned food drive, also known as the InterKeyLeo canned food drive. Students from these clubs met together in the morning and collected cans from houses around the Weibel neighborhood.
“This is an annual event that we do, and I think it’s awesome that we get to bond with other people who enjoy giving back as much as we do,” said junior Joseph Nguyen, the activities coordinator of Interact Club. “It’s about bringing it back to the roots of service; it doesn’t have to be exclusive to only certain groups, as long as it makes you feel good knowing that at the end of the day you are making a difference, no matter how small.”
Not only did the students who participated get service hours, they also had a good time spending time together collecting cans. The cans the students collected would later go to Abode Services of Fremont, which is a homeless shelter that reaches out to the less fortunate.
“It was definitely very fun.” senior Thomas Xian said. “I got to spend time with my friends and at the same time, and I was also contributing to society by helping out the needy.”
According to junior Kailee Tanaka, the president of Key Club, this year, the number of students who participated in the canned food drive increased from previous years.
“Compared to the pictures I have seen from previous years, we had a somewhat better turnout this year. We exceeded our number of projected attendees even though a few did not show up.” she said. “We managed to have enough people to split up into smaller groups so that we could take different, longer routes this year.”
Overall, the annual canned food drive this year was a success as the number of cans they collected increased from previous years because the timing was more strategically placed this year.
“I think the number of cans we collected increased a lot more this year because instead of giving a two days notice like we did years before,, we gave them a week notice in advance so they had more time to prepare.” said senior Kore Lum, a member of Leo Club. “Also, since we collected after Thanksgiving,, many households that had extra canned food they did not use on the holiday and, donated them to us. We are really thankful and grateful that they were willing to donate so many cans to help the needy.”