St. Patrick’s Catholic High School students will be fanning out across Sarnia on April 9 to collect non-perishable food items for the Inn of the Good Shepherd as part of their annual Cyclone Aid food drive.
After being unable to collect food in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions – and being restricted to online donations only in 2021 – students this year will be gathering at three locations in Sarnia (St. Patrick’s parking lot, Foodland in Bright’s Grove and Sarnia’s Superstore ) from 9 am to 12 pm to hold drive-thru food collections.
While it might look a bit different from years past – in pre-COVID days students would go door-to-door – the essence of Cyclone Aid remains the same, said St. Patrick’s teacher/Cyclone Aid organizer Martina Austin. It’s to help community members in need while teaching students about the importance of charity.
Cyclone Aid has been held for the past two decades, Austin said, and the community has never failed to support it.
“A long time ago, when there were two separate high schools, a former chaplain from St. Pat’s moved over to St. Christopher’s,” she said. “Since St. Pat’s always held the traditional Irish Miracle, he was hoping to start a new tradition at St. Christopher’s. And since the Irish Miracle benefits the St. Vincent de Paul Society, he thought it would be nice at Easter time, St. Christopher students could help people at the Inn of the Good Shepherd.”
Up to 100 students will be volunteering at the three locations as well as receiving and boxing collected food at the school, Austin said.
She added that the event has created excitement within the school and school community.
“The students absolutely love signing up, especially to volunteer in our cafeteria – they love watching the food come in, sorting it out and then putting it into boxes,” she said. “The boxes are then sealed and put into our main foyer, they’re stacked there for a few days, so students actually get the chance to see just how much food comes in.
“And that’s when they realize that those boxes only represent a few weeks to a month’s worth of food for people,” Austin added. “It really opens their eyes to how many people are in need, especially now after COVID and all the job losses and changes in people’s lives. So they get to see how many people are affected and how many people they’re helping.”
On average Cyclone Aid collects approximately 28,000 pounds of food each year. Austin said she hopes that this year’s three locations and the in-person nature of the event will mean that Sarnians will donate even more.
“Last year was successful, but by the end of the year I think people were a little bit tired of donating money, though,” she said. “But the community was still so generous – Irish Miracle made around $38,000 and Cyclone Aid still did really well, we raised somewhere between $15,000 to $20,000.
“Because we’re at multiple locations this year, I think we could stand a shot at surpassing that (28,000 pound) target,” Austin added. “That’s a month’s worth of food – the students are really looking forward to making a difference – this is a game changer and we have so many kids chomping at the bit to get involved.”