Walnut Elementary School holds food drive for Ashville community

ASHVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) — Many people are living day by day with no income during the COVID-19 crisis. The Walnut Elementary School in Ashville is helping those in need in its community with its food drive. Many of the staff members are parents and they said it’s upsetting to know that kids and families don’t have access to food in this community. On Wednesday morning, staff and students started collecting boxes and bags of food from cars that pulled up.  

Emily Carle donated to show her kids what the community is all about. 

“We are a small community,” Carle said. “We are a farming community so we pull together. In times of need, we pull together. We are Ashville and we stick together.” 

Alison Hanger is a third grade teacher at the school and organized the food drive.  She said she couldn’t just sit quietly while families went hungry. 

“It keeps us up at night as teachers thinking about those kids,” Hanger said. “We know they get breakfast and lunch here daily.  They take food back home and now none of this is available. It’s heartbreaking.”

Organizers said they’re already in the process of planning the next food drive. They don’t know exactly when it’s going to be, but they are confident it will be just as successful as this one. All of the food collected will be distributed to pantries in the community.