During the weeks from Jan. 14 to Feb. 14, Cranston's Rotary Club hosted a citywide food drive to benefit CCAP, a Share the Love drive, which was open to Cranston schools. Several schools across the city participated, including many who are designated Title I schools due to the numbers of students enrolled there who are deemed eligible for free or reduced lunch benefits. The schools who participated in the recent drive were: Gladstone Elementary School, Stadium Elementary School, St. Paul School, Woodridge Elementary School, Arlington Elementary School, Dutemple Elementary School, Garden City Elementary School and Daniel D. Waterman Elementary School.

Rotarian Roy Evans was one club member who helped in the drive by visiting schools each week to pick up the food items collected.

"I visited every Friday to pick up, and some weeks I wondered if there would be more food to pick up after just having picked up so much the week before," Evans said. "Every week, sure enough, I'd walk in and there would be even more."

Evans was particularly wowed by the amount of food collected at several of the schools.

"Gladstone collected 1,477 pieces, Stadium collected 911, St. Paul School collected 897 and Woodridge collected 620," he said. "The students were always welcoming and excited to help out when I came to pick up. I spoke to one student at Gladstone School who told me that his mother said, ‘There are kids who need it more than we do,' and that really just restores my faith in humanity. What an awesome spirit, what an awesome sentiment."

Rotarian Lori Adamo noted that each school chose how long a period of time they would collect food, and that Gladstone School, one of the schools with a Title I designation, participated for the entire four weeks.

"Some of these kids don't even have their own breakfasts," said Adamo.

She added that within each school a tally was kept to denote which classroom collected the most food items.

"At every school, the class collecting the most food would receive a pizza party at the end of the drive," she said.

According to Lee Beliveau at CCAP, the Rotary's Share the Love food drive has given the agency a much-needed boost that will help to bridge the gap between the winter months when there are many drives for the holidays, and these upcoming months when giving is low.

"There is a huge emergency need at this time for food," Beliveau said. "We collected 16,000 pounds of food in our Holiday Giving Campaign which consisted of the many October, November and December drives, and we were able to put together a lot of food baskets with those donations. This will help us until the next challenging time period, which are the summer months. During that time, kids are not in school so they often don't have any meals. We're gearing up to get ready to address the need for that time of year."

Both Adamo and Evans believe that this year's Share the Love drive was a huge success, and they are thankful to all who participated.

"We had such a great response, so many schools who participated, it was a great success," said Adamo.