The Lynn Youth Health Alliance is a group of teens in Lynn, MA that are determined to improve the well-being of their community. The Alliance is the result of a youth engagement initiative by the Lynn Food and Fitness Alliance and currently operates at 3 high schools in Lynn: St. Mary’s High School, Lynn English High School, and Lynn Classical High School. The group collected 375 meals during the food drive they held with Move For Hunger on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and they decided they wanted to help again during the Thanksgiving season.
The teens held a food drive at their local Stop & Shop on November 9 in an effort to help provide holiday meals for their neighbors in need. Shoppers and members of the local community were urged to donate non-perishable food items such as pasta, peanut butter, and canned vegetables to help support the effort.
After all was said and done, the students had collected a whopping 500 pounds of food - that's the equivalent of 415 meals!
Bridget Peters, a youth leadership coordinator with Lynn Youth Health Alliance, told ItemLive.com that, “Lynn Youth Health Alliance’s mission is to make the Lynn community a healthier place. We’re hoping this food drive can contribute to that.”
Dashon Jones, a 15 year-old member of the group, spoke about what inspired him to get involved.
“I realized that I was just too focused on personal success, on myself,” Jones said. “I decided that I wanted to make a difference in the community.”
Our friends at Two Men and a Truck of Boston provided boxes for the food drive, and then delivered all of the donations to the Greater Boston Food Bank.
There are currently 700,000 people, including 1 in 7 children, who face hunger every day. Thank you to Lynn Youth Health Alliance and Two Men and a Truck for providing assistance to those in need this holiday season.
