By Gabrielle Terrett

The Vicksburg Post

Vicksburg and Warren Central high schools LIVE, GIVE and Beta club organizations teamed up Thursday to give to the less fortunate. The schools held a food drive and delivered the nonperishable items to the River City Rescue Mission as a means of simply being generous.

The organizations collected more than 200 nonperishable food items during the two weeks and donated the overflowing boxes to the River City Rescue Mission.

“This means a lot,” Earnie Hall, director, said. “It’s a temporary fix to a big problem in Vicksburg. People come in each day hungry and this really helps.”

LIVE and GIVE are organizations in the city’s public schools, which encourage the youth to be all about serving others.

“Today the students at Warren Central High School and the National Beta Club came together to bring out nonperishable items for the less fortunate,” Betty Epps Dixon, director of LIVE and Beta Club, said. “We’ve been preparing for this for about two or three weeks because this is the season of giving. We’re giving back to others. The LIVE and the GIVE club are all centered around service work so this is just a project to do to showcase our students giving back to the community.”

The organizations began preparing for the visit two weeks prior to the drop-off with basketball games and food drives.

“Last week we had a teacher versus student basketball game and all the students that participated in the game had to bring five canned goods and that was a way for us to help out the Rescue Mission and the Children’s Shelter at the same time,” Thomas Mayfield, director of GIVE, said. “We raised a nice amount of money for the Children’s Shelter so I wanted to do this at the same time so we could help both organizations out.”

Students in the clubs were given the opportunity to deliver the canned goods in person and many were hopeful of a positive outcome.

“I’m out here today to support GIVE and to support those less fortunate because not everyone has what we have,” Kevin Liu, President of GIVE, said. “I’m hoping that this will affect them in a very positive way because we’re fortunate enough to have all that we have and to be able to give back. Since they aren’t as fortunate as we are I’m just hoping that this will impact them in a very positive way.”

The donation did help the less fortunate and Hall says that even more people could help in the future. The Mission is constantly looking for volunteers and donations to help the community out.

“When you struggle you know how someone feels,” Hall said. “And you just kind of get the feel to help others. We always need volunteers out here to drive the truck or help out when we serve food.”

The donation was not only helpful to the Rescue Mission; it was also extremely beneficial to the schools too. The donation helped to strengthen the connection between the school and the community.

“This will continue to help the relationship between the school district and the community. It’s a part of our mission to participate in community service and to be willing to serve in or out of a school setting,” Dwayne Sims, director of school safety, said. “This will definitely make a great impact. It’s just always letting them know that someone is always thinking about them.”

The donations helped with much more than the clubs had ever bargained for and director Earnie Hall credited the kind act to one person.

“It was all Jesus,” Hall said. “Without Him no one could do anything and what these students are doing wouldn’t be possible.”