Food For Thought, Sion’s annual canned food drive, started on Oct. 29 and has made changes to the competition due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Food For Thought is Sion’s annual food drive that goes to Redemptorist Services, a non-profit organization that  helps the homeless and the people in need. Food for Thought is a  grade competition and the goal for this year is ten tons. If the school reaches the goal, a day off of school will be awarded. The winning grade gets a week of civies, but that is not what matters, according to Social Studies Department Chair Jennifer Brown-Howerton. 

“I think it is important to help people in need,” Brown-Howerton said, “I think with COVID there’s more families that are struggling.”

Brown-Howerton expressed that Food For Thought is about spreading awareness and helping put food on others’ tables. While spreading awareness is important, spreading awareness at Sion could be different this year. 

“For this year because of COVID-19, we can’t have school assemblies for the skits,” Brown-Howerton said. “There’ll be recorded videos and we’ll watch them in Maisons.”

Brown-Howerton expressed that for this year’s Food For Thought, everything will be the same, except for this major change. STUCO will be recording their skits and the Maisons will present them on Nov. 5 during the activity period. Brown-Howerton and sophomore Class President Sophie Gromowsky also described how the students will respond to this change.

“I definitely think that it’s disappointing because it’s something that people look forward to,” Gromowsky said. “It’s a pretty fun event and it’s  a disappointment to not be able to perform live.” 

Gromowsky said that while it is disappointing, the recorded skits are less nerve-wracking and rehearsals can fit better and work better with people’s schedules. Along with that, Gromowsky said that with videos, the participants can film each of their parts separately and then put them together in one video. STUCO president Mary Hudak said that the videos allow for lots of creativity with scene changes, plus  there is availability for everyone, at school and at home, so everyone will have an experience. 

“Having a recording, you can always edit,” Brown-Howerton said, “You can make it really distinct.” 

Students are hopeful to reach the ten ton goal for the second year in a row. Senior Megan Aldaco is not only excited to see what the grades do for their skits, but also to see how the grade competition will play out this year.

“The school absolutely knocked Sock It To Poverty out of the park this year because of the grade competition,” Aldaco said. “So I’m confident that Food For Thought will be no different.”

While there is optimism about Food For Thought and how it will go, there are many disadvantages that come with the major change that has been made. Hudak recounted those disadvantages in an interview.

“We’re having to cut down the amount of time it [STUCO skits] would normally be,” Hudak said, “We’re aiming for four minutes per skit. In the past, it could be up to ten minutes.”

Hudak also said that because it is recorded and shown in maisons, students could be on their computers or look at their phones, thus having a shorter attention span than someone seeing it performed live. Plus, like stated above, the skits will have to be cut short for time. But with all the advantages and disadvantages coming with the skits at Food For Thought, the real reason for the changes was for safety and the well-being of everyone.

“We want everyone to be safe. That’s always our top priority,” Brown-Howerton said, “We want to still have fun, but we have to keep everyone safe first and foremost.”