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Warren freshman earns grant to address community need

By Jeffrey Saulton 4 min read

VINCENT -- What began as a high school club project won a grant for a Warren High School student to help address childhood hunger in her community.

Freshman Allison Cade said she got involved in a food drive project through the Students Solving Problems club.

"Our adviser, Ann Skufca, had the idea to have our students involved in youth projects," she said. "I volunteered to help. I helped write a youth grant that was accepted for $500 to be used for food drives."

Cade's proposal won a grant from the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation Youth Grant through Youth Service America.

"We have had two different food drives, both at the high school during sporting events," she said. "We plan to do our last and final one, that will be our major project to use the grant funds, on April 26."

Cade explained the final drive will be during Global Youth Service Days from April 26-28. That drive will be to help restock local food pantries before schools close for the summer.

"We can't use the funds directly for the food," she said. "We're using the $500 we received to buy tote bags ... so people can use them to be more comfortable in bringing the food in and out."

Cade said there are 20 to 25 members of the group but several more are involved in the drives.

"We will have 50 volunteers at the least, to do the last food drive for the grant funds," she said.

Cade said all the food they have collected came from student, faculty and staff donations at the school and through the community.

"Both of the food drives have been done at sporting events," she said. "We made it a community event; when people come to the sporting events they can drop off items there."

Cade said the group hopes to keep the program going.

"We hope as it goes it will continue to grow and succeed," she said.

Cade said the food drive program fits with her involvement with the environmental club.

"We could have used the grant money for a gardening project or a food drive," she said. "We picked the food drive to be our main cause with more community involvement."

Case has volunteered with two blood drives for the American Red Cross. She also plays basketball and volleyball and is involved with student council at Warren.

Cade said if she were to get an athletic scholarship she would like for it to be for volleyball. But she is more interested in academics.

She began playing volleyball in the fourth grade and basketball about two years before that.

In the classroom, she said her best subjects are math and English.

"Honestly I like the creative aspect of English class," she said. "I like mystery and thriller novels."

At this time her English class is studying William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." In middle school, she said they studied sonnets by Shakspeare, but this is her first time reading one of his plays.

At this time, she is leaning toward nursing for her future career.

"During my junior and senior years I hope I can do dual learning with the (Washington County) Career Center and college," she said. "Half my day would be at the Career Center and the other half I could take college courses."

She said while her school will not have students looking at post-secondary schools until late in their sophomore year or early in the junior year, she has been checking out some schools on her own, including Ohio University, Ohio State and Akron.

"It's always good to have an early start at it," she said.

Jeffrey Saulton can be reached at jsaulton@newsandsentinel.com.

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