For the first time, various clubs and groups will unite on Thursday with a common goal to pack as much food as they can at Feed My Starving Children.

The event was organized by OLAS adviser Mark Poulterer.

“I wanted OLAS to do something to give back, do some volunteer work. Last year, we went to Feed My Starving Children. There were like 20 of us and the kids just loved it. We had a great time,” Poulterer said. “So, I started thinking, ‘Well, maybe we should make February OLAS volunteer month.’ I kept thinking about it, ‘What could we do to make this bigger? Well, let’s invite other clubs and see how many people we can get.’”

Eleven clubs and groups signed up for the event including Compass, International Club, ROAR, Snowball, WeGo Global, SkillsUSA/FCCLA, HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America), Women’s Leadership Summit, the girls softball team, and Team Danzon.

Poulterer has been planning this event for months.

“Feed My Starving Children fills up pretty quick and so they open their registration eight months in advance, so it was about eight months ago that I was like, ‘Now is when I need to find a date and reserve all the spots.’ I reserved all 140 spots. I don’t think we’ll have that many,” Poulterer said.

To Poulterer’s surprise, exactly 160 students signed up for the event. Feed My Starving Children opened up 20 more spots for the extra students.

The participants will meet at commons and enjoy lunch before heading to Feed My Starving Children.

“Chick-fil-A is donating 140 sandwiches to us. The students have to bring their own drinks, but OLAS will provide the sides and chips. The student activity center donated the buses,” Poulterer said.

The clubs and organizations will compete to see which group can pack the most food.

“These high school kids can work really fast and they can work efficiently so that they’re not spilling the food and getting the boxes filled. If we have a competition between the different clubs, that will make people work even faster,” Poulterer said. “I think WeGo Global is definitely the club to beat. OLAS is going to sponsor a party for the winning club.”

Many of the people and clubs participating are excited and grateful to take part in the event.

“It’s all of us working together. We’ll get to see what our hard work is able to accomplish at the end when they tell us how many meals we packed knowing that as the West Chicago community, we were able to accomplish that. I’m looking forward to that,” WeGo Global adviser Maggie Haas said.

Poulterer and many clubs plan on repeating this event next year.