Hatboro-Horsham High School Students Help Area Families during the Holiday Season with Adopt-A-Family and Feed-A-Friend Programs

The holiday season can be a difficult time of year for families that can’t make ends meet. So two Hatboro-Horsham High School student organizations have decided to help some of these area families by providing food, financial assistance and wrapped toys. The two service projects are Adopt-A-Family by Black Student Union and Feed-A-Friend by Student Council.

The BSU is in its third year for the Adopt-A-Family program. The organization works with local state representatives to locate one or tow families a year outside the Hatboro-Horsham borders that could use assistance.

“We want to put our name in other communities and let them know that we want to help support families there too,” Principal and BSU advisor Dennis Williams said. “We do so much in our own community; the BSU wants to extend that love and support to less fortunate families in surrounding communities as well.”

Over several weeks BSU has collected money and toy donations, with the hope of collecting approximately $1,000 in toys and gifts for a family. With additional funds the organization will adopt a second family. BSU members will then hand-wrap toys for delivery, along with food and some financial assistance, and deliver the items on Dec. 20, hopefully while the children are at school.

While BSU is helping families in the surrounding communities, Student Council is working to support those in the Hatboro-Horsham area with the Feed-A-Friend program. This program aims to gather enough groceries to feed over 115 needy families for three weeks. This is the ninth year this program has been in effect.

“Unfortunately, we’ve seen the need grow over the past several years while donations have started to decrease. We can’t distribute enough food to get anywhere near the true need,” advisor Dave Thomas said. “However, we’ve created something that still gets an excellent community response. This is a great opportunity for children to help children their own age. I tell students all the time, they might sit next to someone in need every day.”

In recent weeks, Student Council distributed over 15,000 bags to the community for donations. Volunteers and Student Council members then went back a week later collect the bags and separate the groceries in the high school lobby.

“We turn the school lobby into a food pantry,” Thomas said.