NEW PARIS — National Trail High School student took time out of class Tuesday, Nov. 15, to help prepare Bags of Hope for those in need around Preble County. The students eagerly gathered in the high school gymnasium, where teachers gave brief instructions and a quick pep-talk.
“We started this program, and we do it every year. We make 500 bags, then we distribute them throughout all of Preble County. We received a grant through the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Ohio FFA Foundation, to cover the expenses for the event,” explained NT FFA Agriculture Educator Carmen Kennel.
Students rushed to fill bags with canned goods and ingredients to the overhead sound of popular Christmas music classics. They stationed themselves either behind a table full of goods, or in the single-file line filling bags and delivering them to the gymnasium stage, where their classmates organized heaps of filled bags.
“The bags each contain a recipe and all of the ingredients to make a taco soup,” Kennel added. Each bag is intended to feed a family of four, but according to Kennel, they exceed that number. With all the bags filled and ready to deliver, over 2,000 residents of Preble County will be fed a dinner by the program.
According to Eric Kennel, National Trail has now hosted the Bags of Hope program for eight years, and looks forward to hosting it again in 2023.
