Special to the Herald

Every year, the Cranston High School West football team, along with the Cranston High School East football team, take part in an annual Thanksgiving food drive.

During this time, the teams come together at the Cranston Senior Center on Cranston Street to deliver small turkey dinners to the elderly. The Cranston West football team’s head coach, Thomas Milewski, was asked about the team’s involvement with this activity and he said, “The team loves it, it’s a great thing. It’s something that we’ve been doing since the early 90’s, for as long as I’ve been involved with Cranston West football.”

He continued, “It’s great to get the kids out there and see that sometimes it’s tough, the holidays can be tough for some people, and our seniors are something we have to cherish.”

Everyone gets together including the players, the mayor, the principals of both high schools, the athletic director, and some senior center personnel.

“The senior center organizes all of the meals and a bunch of the elementary schools in our city design the bags. They color turkeys and they write little notes to the seniors for a kind of decoration,” said Milewski.

Cranston West senior captain Jared Parent expressed his feelings about how it feels to be able to take part in this community outreach tradition, “It’s definitely good for us. One, it’s a team bonding experience, but it’s also that the community does so much for us throughout the season, like coming to our games, it’s just a nice way for us to give back to them.”

When asked about how he and his team felt after taking part in this food drive, Cranston West junior captain Adrian Samayoa had a lot to say. “I think it’s definitely a high level of pride that comes along with it.”

Samayoa continued, “just that feeling of making someone’s day, making someone’s Thanksgiving that they may not be able to go out or celebrate with a lot of people that they love.”

He emphasized the good feeling that he and his team are left with after doing this for the community. Cranston West junior captain Kelan Cornell also expressed his views on this yearly tradition. “It’s a great tradition. It’s awesome to give back to the community and help those in need. It’s always fun and wholesome. We take a lot of pride in it.”

In addition to this, all three captains went on to talk about how this is a great way to spread love city wide to others during the holiday season. With Coach Milewski having been involved with this football program since the year 1992, he was asked if after all this time he still feels the positive impact throughout the program as they succeed in their mission to give back.

There was no hesitation before answering this question, “Absolutely. It’s great to get together on that day and give back to our community. It’s great to work with, I mean Cranston East is our rival, so it’s great to get together with them and go throughout both the Eastern side and the Western side of the city and give back to our seniors. We get together to kind of emphasize the point of Thanksgiving, we have to give thanks for something, and in this case, we’re giving thanks on being able to give back to our community.”