MOSES LAKE — With the Christmas season shifting into high gear, it’s also prime time for charitable projects.

The canned food drive at Moses Lake High School gets really serious this week. The food drive has been going on for a week or so; as of Friday the students had collected about 900 cans, boxes and bags of nonperishable food. But “our goal as a school is to collect over 5,000 cans,” said ASB advisor Amy Utter. “We have a week to pick up the pace.”

The food will be donated to the Moses Lake Food Bank.

There is, of course, a class competition – the third period class that collects the most food will get breakfast cooked and served by Utter’s leadership class. The breakfast is serious business, even if people insist it's no big deal. Last year or the year before, “we might’ve had too many griddles plugged in on the same wall,” Utter said, and they tripped the breaker.

Along with the all-school contest, “we have some side bets going on,” between teachers and classes, she said. A couple of teachers have been known to stockpile until the finale. “They sort of hoard them and whip them out at the end of the week.”

Donations are being accepted from MLHS students, faculty and staff and anybody in the community who wants to donate. Donations can be dropped off at the MLHS office, 803 East Sharon Ave.

The food bank is soliciting donations for its Christmas toy distribution, Operation Friendship, with distribution scheduled for Saturday, for Moses Lake families only.

Toys are distributed to parents who sign up, and they can sign up during food bank hours, 11 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Parents will get a list of the required information, which they must bring with them when they come to pick up the packages.

The food bank is focusing on toys for children from newborns to 12 years of age; any donations that might be appropriate for teenagers will be distributed to families with teens. Food bank operators are looking for donations of new toys, $10 to $15 in value. (The food bank would rather have a lot of relatively less expensive toys than a few relatively more expensive ones, Archer said.)

Toys should be donated unwrapped – back in the day a grinch brought in something inappropriate in a wrapped box. Donations of money also are being accepted. All donations earmarked for toys go to buy toys, Archer said.

There are volunteers working at the food bank from about 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and toy (and food) donations can be dropped off during those hours.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].