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Canisius High School collecting food for Great Ignatian Challenge

The competitive food drive pits Jesuit High Schools from New York State, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania against each other while helping local food banks.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Canisius High School is kicking off the season of giving with a food drive that also has a competitive twist. 

"The Great Ignatian Challenge" pits eight Jesuit schools from New York State, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania against each other to see who can collect the most food for their local food banks. 

Canisius students have been collecting food every day before school. It will all be donated to St. Luke's Mission of Mercy in Buffalo. The seniors there say it's a way for them to give back on a year that they're grateful to be at school.

"I'm pretty proud of the way Canisius has handled it, we definitely could have just gone online and not been able to be here," Will Peroni told 2 On Your Side.  "They've taken the time to figure out steps to help us be here."

"We are very blessed to get the opportunity to be in school five days a week, in person," Aiden O'Donnell added. "I just think it's great, and it shows a lot about our community that we're not only here but we're here for each other as well."

This is the fifth year of the Great Ignatian Challenge and the first year that Canisius has participated. Depending on how much they raise, each participating school will receive a financial donation to go towards COVID related expenses and tuition assistance. The students say it's about more than that. 

"It's more of a win for Buffalo than for us because it shows that our community can come together and support a common cause together," O'Donnell said. "That's something that's really important to our city because we're the city of good neighbors."

"We're just happy we can help out St. Luke's," Peroni said. "It's a trying time for a lot of people in the community of Buffalo so we're just trying to help out."

If you want to get involved, Canisius is hosting a community food drop-off event in its parking lot on Saturday, November 14 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.

They're requesting non-perishable items such as:
- ramen noodles
- canned corn
- boxed rice
- pasta
- peanut butter & jelly
- cranberry sauce
- stuffing
- brownie mix
- mac and cheese
- corn muffin mix

More details are available here. 

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