New *VISTA On Board and MLK Food Drive!

Hello Everyone! My name is Jesica, and I am the new *VISTA on the South Franklin Project. I started working last month and have been enjoying the various projects that we've been working on.

I log in today to regale you all with a short synopsis of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Food Drive that we did here in Provo. I worked with fellow *VISTAs (Daniel, Daniel, and Carolina) to get various fun centers in the Provo/Orem area to agree to giving discounts to customers who brought in food donations on MLK Day. We called the event Cans for Fun! The locations that participated were: The Peaks Ice Arena, Color-Me-Mine, Nickel Cade, Classic Skate, Utah Kernels Gourmet Popcorn, Laser Assault, and Trafalga. The businesses that participated were really positive and enthusiastic about helping and between the 7 locations, there was approximately 500 pounds of food donated to Community Action Services and Food Bank! Considering the short amount of time that we had to create and advertise this food drive, it turned out to be a great success! We hope to see this become an annual tradition!
A Trafalga employee puts donated cans into the food drive bin.


Color-Me-Mine had the biggest turnout. Their bin was completely full!

The Peaks Ice Arena collected a lot of food too!

Laser Assault also had a lot of people donate food. A group of around 20 friends went to play a game of Laser Tag.... and an employee shows off the amount of food they got donated so far that day.















Below, the "Popcorn Man" stands in front of the delicious popcorn at Utah Kernels Gourmet Popcorn in Orem. He was very generous and volunteered to keep the bin and offer the deal of "buy one get one free" to anyone who brought in canned goods donations through the rest of January and through the entire month of February!