Foundation awards grant to Kiwanis

The Sisters Kiwanis Food Bank has received a generous $5,000 grant from The Roundhouse Foundation.

The grant has an important stipulation: each of the local schools will launch food drives for the Sisters Kiwanis Food Bank. This "matching" aspect of the grant encourages the kids to collect lots of food and involves them in a local community-service project. Each pound of food collected will be matched by $1 from The Roundhouse Foundation.

The high school Key Club (affiliated with the Kiwanis Club) kicks off their food drive on December 4 at a school assembly. The drive will be a competition between the freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior classes. Key Clubbers will manage every part of the food drive - collecting the donations, weighing the food, delivering it to the food bank and unloading the trucks. The winning class receives "spirit points" that accumulate throughout the school year; in June the winning class receives an appropriate prize.

The middle school drive also kicks off on December 4, and will be a competition between homerooms. The winning homeroom receives a prize.

Plans for the elementary school haven't been finalized; their food drive will begin early in 2016.

Donors often find food drive donations confusing. There is a common, but false, impression that food drives collect outdated or damaged food. In fact, the opposite is true, donations must be:

• Unexpired, undamaged cans or bottles.

• Unexpired, undamaged packaged food such as pasta or rice.

To donate food, you will find donation boxes in the high school and middle school lobbies. Also, you can contact a high school or middle school student if you know one.

The Roundhouse Foundation is a Sisters-based organization that funds projects to encourage community enrichment in Oregon with a particular emphasis on Deschutes County. Visit their website at http://www.gosw.org/sites/roundhousefoundation for more information.

The Sisters Kiwanis Food Bank, located on Main Avenue in Sisters, provides food to hundreds of food-insecure local residents each month. For more information about the Food Bank, visit www.sisterskiwanis.org, email [email protected]