As Edwardsburg football fans fill the bleachers Friday night, they will have the chance to give back to the community while cheering on their favorite team.

The Edwardsburg High School Leo Club,  a youth branch of the international service organization the Lions Club, will be hosting a food drive during the Oct. 13 EHS home game. With the game against Vicksburg High beginning at 7 p.m., the Leos are asking people to bring in canned and nonperishable food items before, during and after the game. Monetary donations are also welcome. The collected food and money will be given to the Edwardsburg Food Pantry.

“Everyone can participate. Bring a can and watch a football game. It’s great,” said Leo Club Supervisor Tanda Stiffler.

Stiffler said the Leo Club has been heavily advertising the food drive, which will be the group’s first major event of the school year. The group sent forms out to high school students’ parents, as well as decorated signs and hung them up all over the school to remind students to participate.

“If every family brought in one canned food, we’d be happy,” Stiffler said. “If everyone brought one thing, we’d be good. That would be a lot of food coming in.”

Stiffler said the students that participate in the Leo Club have done a great job getting ready for the food drive and that they are eager to help out the community.

“[The food drive] is a really, really great thing,” said Leo Club President Katie Mcanarney. “It’s great to help out our local food pantry.”

With holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas rounding the corner, the Leos thought the Oct. 13 game was both the right time and event for the food drive.

“We wanted to get the food out before Thanksgiving, so it can go into baskets and things. It’s the right time,” Mcanarney, who has participated in many food drives during her high school career, said. “Student council always does a food drive and it’s very successful. I think this will be equally as successful.”

Mcanarney said members of the Leo Club are not driven by numbers or wanting to tick off community service hours. Instead, they want to participate in the food drive out of a genuine want to help out people in the community, she said.

“There are people in our school who need the food pantry, and you just don’t know,” Mcanarney said. “Your family could easily be put in that situation. So, I think the food pantry is just one of those causes that everyone should support. As a student being able to work with a food pantry locally, knowing people I interact with use that, is really good.”

Mcanarney said that she will be available at the game to answer any questions that anyone has about the food drive or the Leo Club in general.

Both Mcanarney and Stiffler have high hopes for the food drive and believe they will bring in a good amount of food for the pantry.

“The [football] games bring in so many people,” Mcanarney said. “So, it should also bring in a lot of food.”