- Sky View High School students organized a food drive to support families on SNAP benefits on Friday.
- It comes as SNAP benefits for families nationwide are set to possibly be suspended on Saturday.
- All the donations will support both food bank in Smithfield, Cache County, and the Cache Valley Food Bank.
SMITHFIELD, Cache County — Students at Sky View High School are getting a head start on the season of giving.
In response to SNAP benefits possibly ending for many families, they're turning their annual food drive into a friendly and impactful competition.
"And it started with, kind of this competitiveness, wanting to beat the senior class and all the other classes," Sky View High School junior Hyrum Pugmire said. "But as we started to get all the juniors together, things kind of changed a little bit, and we realized how much good that we could actually do with this."
Each year, Sky View students face off in a "battle of the classes" to collect the most food donations.
This year, the competition was about more than just bragging rights.
With food assistance potentially ending for some families, the students wanted to step up in a big way.
"Even just being high schoolers, we can still make such a big difference, especially if we come together," Pugmire said.
And that's exactly what they did.
The junior class alone raised nearly $700, then hit the stores, clearing out shelves at Big Deal Outlet, WinCo and the dollar store.
"Together in one truckload of food, which was just this group of people. Everyone else in the school also did things like this. We spent $456, plus some cans from people's pantries, and we spent $306 just at WinCo," he said.
All donations will go to the local food bank, and any extra will be donated to the Cache Valley Food Bank.
Sky View teacher Keri Pugmire said this year's drive felt different because of the quality of the donations, and the students' heart behind it.
"We had a few teachers come in here and watch this during lunch and getting tears in their eyes, because we know a lot of families that have been affected by this government shutdown," she said.
This year, each class set a goal of 8,000 points in donations, but by Friday, the freshmen, juniors, and seniors each surpassed 20,000 points — and they are still tallying up the donations.
"I think it's going to affect a lot of people for the good," Hyrum Pugmire said.
Later on Friday, two federal judges ruled that President Donald Trump's administration cannot suspend food aid for millions of Americans during the ongoing government shutdown. The judges said the government must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits. It was not immediately clear whether the rulings mean that benefits will be paid on Saturday, Nov. 1.
Contributing: Reuters
