Stuffing, canned bean, mashed potatoes, and peas. These are just a few of the items that Project Concern set out to collect for their annual Thanksgiving food drive with the hopes of helping at least a few Lancer families who cannot afford a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Project Concern has teamed up with Lancers United, the PTSA student group, to collect any and all non-perishable food items.

Each year, Project Concern expects a moderate donation from Lancer students and staff for the drive. However, this year, they collected more food than ever before.

In addition to the surplus of initial student donations, the Samaritan Center in Simi Valley generously contributed 15 turkeys and over a thousand miscellaneous food items to the Thousand Oaks High School charity. This contribution will allow Project Concerned to provide more than 50 families with complete Thanksgiving meals and have food to spare.

“Everyone deserves to have food for Thanksgiving. We just want people to have food to eat and [for] no one to go hungry,” Project Concern club treasurer Kassy Aguilar said.

Students from both Project Concern and Lancers United spent all day Monday sorting bags of donated food into boxes based upon specific family need. These boxes of food will be distributed to the families of Lancer students as well as other families in the Thousand Oaks community before Thanksgiving on Thursday, Nov. 26.