Whether they are a kindergartner still adjusting to the classroom or a senior counting the days before graduation, there is one cause that every Dowagiac student rallied around last week: the fight against hunger.

Starting last Monday, the district’s food services department organized a food drive that spanned across all schools, with students donating canned goods and other nonperishable food items like pasta and soup mixes throughout the week. The drive is part of a larger national food drive called “End it with Orange,” organized by the No Hungry Kid program, which coincides with Hunger Awareness Month in September.

“On Friday, we encouraged everyone to wear orange, which isn’t very hard here in Dowagiac, to try and show their support for the cause,” said Food Services Director Deb Cahill.

This is the first time that district has participated in the program, Cahill said. The director, who has been with district since December, was pleased with the amount of students who participated in the drive, saying that the donation boxes with the schools she visited were filled.

“While we really haven’t done this before, we did get a really great response to it,” Cahill said. “It was great to see the community rally around it.”

Next week, food services will gather the collected food items and donate them to ACTION Ministries food pantry in Dowagiac, where the items will be distributed to local families.

This project is just one of many ways that the district is fighting hunger in the community.

During the summer, Cahill and other school employees helped hand out free sack lunches to kids throughout the community as part of “Michigan’s Meet Up and Eat Up” food program.

“A lot of kids around here know hunger, or know a kid that does,” Cahill said. “We’re making sure that the kids of Dowagiac are fed, that they don’t have to worry about where their next meal comes from.”