GTHS Team Heads Efforts to Feed the World’s Hungry

Grand Terrace’s varsity football team is doing something no other high schools in the area are doing: they’re feeding the world’s less fortunate, and they’re doing it by packaging meals one at a time. The Grand Terrace High School (GTHS) football team has partnered with Fundraising With a Purpose, a nationwide organization that works to better the lives of individuals in many walks of life, to package and send 60,000 meals to starving children. Ruben Morales, a football coach at GTHS, said, “We’re the only school in Southern California to do this.” He explained that in order to feed as many children as possible, the team is leaning toward sending the packaged meals to children in third-world countries. “The funds donated help us buy the food and then we package it all and we’ll send it out,” Morales said. Fundraising with a Purpose is responsible for sending GTHS all the food and supplies needed to bundle it up, including the required gloves and hairnets the students wear. Morales said the students then measure, seal and box up the food in an assembly-line. Donations start at $15, according to the Fundraising with a Purpose website; one child can be fed for an entire day for 30 cents, or $15 can buy enough food to feed one child for an entire month, the website explains. Morales explained that with about 100 kids on the football team, GTHS participants have been asked to sell 10 of these $15 units each, which equates to their goal of packaging 60,000 meals. The GTHS football program only retains $2 of each $15 donation it receives. By March 4, the team was at the halfway mark, Morales shared. “The really great thing about this is that anyone can donate anywhere. You don’t have to know a student or meet with a student to donate. You can do it right online,” said Morales. To donate, simply visit www.fundraisingwithapurpose.org/donation and fill out the form.