This winter season, Lightridge Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) made holiday meals for families in need.

The McKinney-Vento Act, passed by the federal government in 1987, guarantees school enrollment and services for anyone who doesn’t have a regular nighttime residence. Holly Angle is a specialist with the organization in charge of implementing the act.

“As a team we felt and continue to feel that sharing a meal represents connection and we want the students we serve and their families to feel a sense of connection to not only our team, their individual schools, but to LCPS as a whole,” said Angle.

Angle approached Lightridge Family Liaison Nonna Hunter and asked if the school could help with the resources to make the meals this year.

“I said well, I can approach Dr. Hitchman and see if we can help out,” said Hunter. “He said let’s run with it.”

Students of all culinary levels were involved in making the meals.

“The students that are in charge of planning the meals are the third and fourth levels,” said culinary teacher Kelsey Zaremsky. “They’re testing out recipes and determining how many servings each recipe will make so that we can scale the recipes to feed 70 people.”

All FACS students combined classes on November 24 and November 25 to make the meals which included turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, corn, mac and cheese, corn bread muffins and pumpkin crumb muffins.

“We’re trying to serve 70 people, not just one serving, but some leftovers,” said Zaremsky.

The meals were not the only items that were included, the students also created a snack bag.

This project was a collaborative community effort.

“The turkeys are being donated and some of the potatoes are being donated,” said Zaremsky. “Trader Joes is giving us the paper bags that these meals will be delivered in.”

The bags were distributed by McKinney-Vento to all the families just in time for the holiday season.

“It was so heartfelt to find out that we made a lot of meals for families who can’t always put a Thanksgiving meal on the table,” said senior Lily Brown.