Holley Interact Club makes 600 meals for those in need
Provided photo: Holley Interact Club members last Thursday served in the food line at the Orleans Koinonia Kitchen. From left serving sloppy joe dinners include Maddie Lowell, Brianna Pellegrino, Lily Moore, Charli Gearing and Kylie Dann. Co-advisor Erin Dibble is in back.
HOLLEY/ALBION – The Holley Interact Club prepared more than 600 meals last week to be served at the Open Door Mission in Rochester and the Orleans Koinonia Kitchen in Albion.
The Interact Club includes about 80 students committed to community service. The club embraced a “Feed the Need” initiative.
Photo by Tom Rivers: Interact Club members are shown are making 140 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches last Wednesday in the junior/senior high school cafeteria.
Those sandwiches were delivered to the Open Door Mission on Friday. Students decorated bags with artwork and added inspirational messages for 70 bags. Each bag had two sandwiches, chips and juice.
Provided photo: High School Principal Matt Feldman greets students working on the bagged lunches for the Open Door Mission.
This was the second year that the Holley Interactors made sandwiches for the Open Door Mission. Thursday the group served at the “OK Kitchen” for the first time after club advisor Sam Zelent saw a social media post by kitchen director Faith Smith, seeking help preparing and serving meals for one of the Thursdays.
The Holley community donated the food for a sloppy joe dinner, including 90 pounds of ground beef, 83 cans of Manwich, 83 jars of peas, 500 Little Debbie snacks and a $100 from Wegmans. The Holley school kitchen staff cooked the sloppy joes which were then reheated at the OK Kitchen.
“Honestly it was the community that did this,” Zelent, a social worker, said Wednesday about the food.
The following day she and club co-advisor Erin Dibble were with eight Interact students to prepare and serve the food at the OK Kitchen, which is located at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Albion on Route 31.
Photo by Tom Rivers: Sam Zelent, the co-advisor of the Holley Interact Club, gives the group a pep talk before they served sloppy joes last Thursday at the OK Kitchen. Clockwise from Zelent include MacKenzie Fiorito, Lily Moore, Brianna Pellegrino, Leon Wilcox, Charli Gearing, Madie Lowell, Kylie Dann, Joscelyn Underwood and the back of Erin Dibble.
Provided photos: (Left) Brianna Pellegrino and Lily Moore are on cleanup duty at the OK Kitchen. (Right) MacKenzie Fiorito and Joscelyn Underwood greeted the community with smiles while working in the OK Kitchen last Thursday. The students arrived at 1 p.m. and stayed until well after 6.
The Holley Interact Club was amazed by the OK Kitchen and the commitment of the volunteers led by director Faith Smith.
The Interactors would like to be back again soon helping at the kitchen, even though it isn’t located right in Holley.
“Orleans County is a small county and we need to stick together,” Zelent said.
Charli Gearing, right, and the Interactors serve in the food last Thursday.
“I gained a lot of knowledge about my community and its needs and that there should be more opportunities like this for us younger kids to help make a difference,” she said.
Another student, Madie Lowell, said the experience was “eye opening.” She is impressed by the volunteers to help out every week, preparing and serving an average of 500 meals.
Faith Smith, the OK Kitchen director, said she appreciated the service and the enthusiasm from the Holley students. She welcomes more groups to try preparing and serving a meal. They can contact her at (585) 319-1578 or by email at mesilly12@yahoo.com.
The Interact Club is also looking forward to its next big event, the community cleanup on May 17 when they pick up litter along the canal trail, village streets and parks.
