ROANOKE, Va. – Different organizations are holding canned food drives during the winter months to benefit area food banks.
The Local Office on Aging in Roanoke County is getting ready to kick off its annual Soup for Seniors Drive, which runs Monday through Friday, to help 3,500 seniors have a hot meal.
Teachers at Burlington Elementary School have been busy stacking boxes of canned soup to help senior citizens like Lola Gill.
“I can’t get around on my own, so it means a lot to have a hot soup,” Gill said.
The school has only been collecting canned soup for a few days, but students have already managed to bring in more than double the number of cans this year compared with last year.
“We ended up surpassing expectations with over 5,500 total cans,” Jessica Brooks, a teacher at Burlington Elementary School, said.
Students are also learning about the importance of giving back.
Below is a map to view places where you can donate canned soup.
In Lynchburg, students at Linkhorne Elementary School used canned food items to predict who they think will win the Super Bowl.
During its annual Souper Bowl Canned Food Drive, students predicted who will win by placing canned foods in either the Philadelphia Eagles or the New England Patriots bag.
In the end, it seems these kids bleed green as there were 538 cans for the Eagles and only 139 cans for the Patriots.
The students, along with their teacher, say this is their way of paying it forward to the community.
"My classmates and I have done a really good thing to people who need this food," said fifth-grader Nick Minor.
All the food collected was given to the Lynchburg Food Bank.