Coppell High School started its very own food pantry officially at the beginning of this school year and, after a rocky start of trying to get it started in years past, it has finally taken off.

The Food Pantry, an idea by Assistant Principal Laura Stout, is located on campus and provides non-perishable food items like cereal, canned goods and pastas to provide temporary relief to Coppell High School families in need.

The high demand for necessities that families faced last year in the heat of the economy jump started the need for a year-round food pantry.
“The pantry got started by finding out through students that several families couldn’t pay bills, so I thought if they didn’t have electricity or phone service they probably didn’t have food,” Stout said. “It was during the economic crash last year that we had a lot of job loss that included some of our parents [here at CHS], so [I figured] we could at least help to provide these families with food in the interim.”

The pantry has since grown to include pastas, soups, canned goods, rice, beans, crackers and hot chocolate and has helped numerous Coppell High School families get by in rough economic times including this past Thanksgiving holiday.

“I put out word [last year] to see who could help start the pantry and Mrs. Martin jumped on [the opportunity]to collect food,” Stout said.
AP Biology teacher Jennifer Martin was a contributing member for the start of the Food Pantry.

“I overheard a parent telling the nurse that their family was unable to buy groceries. It made me really sad that there was somebody in the community that needed help and that we didn’t have a mechanism here at the school to help them,” Martin said. ”So I went to my AP biology class who had helped a needy family in Coppell a few years before and asked if they would like to ‘sponsor’ this family and provide food and toiletries for them.”

Martin and her classes gathered a substantial amount of food to add to the unfilled and technically unborn pantry. A fun and educational twist was added to the class’ contribution effort as students supplied non-perishable food items that resembled parts of a cell to make what they called the world’s largest cell.

“This year HOSA got involved [with the pantry] at football games, and Caitlin VanRiper has pretty much taken over which has helped me because it is such a big project,” Stout said.

Senior Caitlin VanRiper has recently become very involved in the role the food pantry plays, integrating donations into MAP sessions, creating a Facebook group and taking on the responsibility of the upkeep of the pantry. VanRiper hopes to expand the pantry even further by next semester to reach all across the district, beginning with a school close to her, Denton Creek, where her mother currently teaches.

“[What inspired this expansion was] just talking to my mom about how students need help there [at Denton Creek] and that getting the whole district involved would benefit so many more families in Coppell,” VanRiper said.

The Food Pantry is run by teachers and students as its main benefactor and is aimed at always having a full stock of goods. Non-perishable goods of all sorts are accepted and can be brought to Mrs. Stout or MAP sessions, and unlike turkey drives and most canned food drives, the food pantry is not limited seasonally and is open to benefactors and anonymous beneficiaries alike year ‘round.

“[Coppell] is a well to do community but there’s need here just as there is in other communities,” Stout said. “We should try to reach out and help other because we are such a tight knit community.”

If you have a friend or know of anyone who is in need of relief, contact Stout at [email protected] or let a Coppell High School counselor know.