NSCD students collect more than 1,000 items for food drive and will continue good deeds throughout December

The COVID-19 pandemic has paused a lot of activity at schools near and far, but it cannot halt North Shore Country Day’s commitment to its motto: Live and serve.

And the greater community has benefitted, as NSCD students recently gathered 1,121 food items for Family Focus and will continue service efforts throughout the holiday season, according to a statement from the school.

For the food drive, the school smashed its goal of 1,000 food items with collections from across the school’s grade levels. Family Focus will distribute the items across Chicagoland.

Up next, the North Shore Country Day community will sponsor families through the Northwestern Settlement House, providing gifts and household items for the holidays, the school says.

While COVID-19-related circumstances have limited aspects of the service work, they have actually allowed the school to expand the number of sponsored families threefold — from 13 to 43 — thanks to the participation of NSCD parents and families, according to the school.

Also in December, instead of volunteering to serve food at a local shelter, as students do in normal years, the NSCD community will prepare or gather meals and drop them off at Hilda’s Place, a shelter run by Connections for the Homeless.

More about North Shore Country Day School’s service efforts can be found on its “Live and Serve” website.

“We have to continue to spread generosity as much as we can,” said Drea Gallaga, who is director of the school’s Live+Serve Lab, in the press release. “The smallest gestures towards those affected by COVID-19 — the elderly, the struggling, the immunocompromised or the isolated — can mean so much. Kindness is so valuable right now.”