FOREST CITY — Each time the school bus came to a stop Thursday, physics teacher Dan Nebzydoski looked at his packet and called out numbers.
“Box 42, seat 10.”
“Box 43, seat 12.”
Members of Forest City Regional High School’s student council grabbed frozen turkeys and boxes filled with fixings for Thanksgiving dinners. For the district’s annual Feed-a-Friend program, the students made sure their friends, classmates and neighbors have plates full of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and green beans next week.
“We support the community, and we’ll do anything we can,” junior Brady Hentschel, 16, said as the bus came to another stop.
Students on two buses delivered dinner ingredients to 70 families Thursday — thanks to money student council raised at a haunted house and with support from the Northern Counties Full Fan Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation.
The district started the program more than 25 years ago, with families originally driving to the school to pick up the donations. About 15 years ago, after learning that many residents didn’t have reliable transportation, students started delivering the food. The bus drivers donate their time to help.
“It opens students’ eyes and makes them more compassionate,” said math teacher Cynthia Weiss, a student council moderator. “They may not know their classmates’ families are struggling.”
The district identified more than 50 families who needed extra help this season, and the Salvation Army also provided names of elderly residents in need of assistance. Some homes may not have running water. Families struggle to pay their heating bills. In the small, 796-student district, the volunteers said they didn’t want their neighbors having to worry about Thanksgiving dinner.
Zazzera’s Supermarket in Forest City provides the food at a “good price.” Members of the district’s student councils packed the boxes in the morning, making sure each family has enough ingredients for dinner, and included other items, such as peanut butter, bread and cookies.
Within 20 minutes Thursday morning, the students on bus 9 made deliveries in Vandling in Lackawanna County, the Browndale section of Clinton Twp. in Wayne County and Forest City in Susquehanna County.
The students carried the heavy boxes off the bus, down driveways and up porch steps. Gracious recipients thanked the students for the deliveries.
“You don’t realize there are that many families in need,” sophomore Skylar Ferrel, 16, said.
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