Chenango Valley’s Warrior Food Center to hold health supply drive

BINGHAMTON (WBNG) - Like a few other school districts in our area, Chenango Valley Central School District has a food and supply pantry stocked with essentials.

For the Warrior Food Center to best serve Chenango Valley residents and students, help is needed this weekend.

“It’s really important to have the school act as the hub of the community, that’s the goal of a community school,” said Community School Coordinator Jackie DeAngelo who also helps run the center. ”It lets the students access several services.. food being huge.”

The original concept of what’s now referred to as the Warrior Food Center for Chenango Valley commenced years ago. Students, but also the Chenango Valley community, can benefit from the resource.

“We started to partner with the Food Bank of the Southern Tier to become a food center, which kind of allowed us to enhance the pantry that was already here,” said DeAngelo. “We’re able to get more funding to get more regular items, but we also do several drives throughout the year.”

The latest drive, a health supply drive, is happening tomorrow, Jan. 7. Head Coach Madison Aswad of JV cheerleading initiated this specific outreach effort.

“I thought it was really important for our girls to give back to the community,” said Aswad.

For the Saturday drive, Aswad reached out to the guidance office to see how the cheer team could assist the community.

“There was a desperate need for things like shampoo, conditioner, body wash that they are lacking in the food center and so that’s how we sort of came up with the idea of the health supply drive,” she said.

The Jan. 7 goal is to collect 200 items.

“Obviously, if we could do more that would be awesome,” said Aswad. “Understanding that anyone around you can be struggling. Again, with the stigma, a lot of people don’t want to admit that they’re struggling with food and personal items. It’s really important for me to get my girls involved.”

To do your part from 12-2 p.m., items can be dropped off at the security entrance of Chenango Valley High School.

If you or someone you know in the school district area is in need of assistance and would like an appointment, you are asked to call the CV Middle School/High School Guidance Office at 607-762-6918.

When it comes to the Warrior Food Center as a whole, from September 2021 to August 2022, this local resource was able to assist 710 families, 1,278 children, 338 adults, and 49 seniors.