Warwick Interact Club triples holiday food drive donations

Warwick - The Interact Club, a Rotary-sponsored community service organization with more than 150 members at Warwick Valley High School, collected more than 1,350 items during its recently completed holiday food drive. According to Marissa Santalla, the group’s public relations liaison, the group typically collects about 400 items during the annual food drive. “We chose to increase our goal this year because we realized that the Warwick and Florida food pantries were really in need of supplies,” Santalla said in an e-mail exchange. “Because we are members of the Warwick community, we felt that this was the ideal project to devote additional attention to. We feel that we received such remarkable responses because the students at Warwick are very civic minded and Interact Club itself is exceptionally dedicated. This year we really pushed to reach our goal.” The Interact Club also sold candy-gram cards at $2 each in school, with the proceeds used to purchase 15 gingerbread house kits that were donated to the Ronald McDonald House in New York City. The group collected about $250 and Interact member Gianna Fratto delivered the donation to the Ronald McDonald House in the city. Club officers are: Andrew Burke, president; Tom Naples, vice president; Sarah Ferguson, secretary; Sarah Fugate, treasurer: Taylor Curtain; historian; and Marissa Santalla, public relations liaison. Jeanine Fogler is the club advisor and Vice Principal John Buckley is the Rotary advisor.