At a glance
“Footloose” will run at 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and April 26 and 27, and at noon April 28. Tickets are $7. Donation bins will be on site for attendees to drop off non-perishable foods. For those who can’t attend the production, drop-off bins for Sacks of Love will remain at the school’s front desk and at the Sawnee Woman’s Club.
They may be kicking off their Sunday shoes on stage, but when they’re not performing, drama students at Forsyth Central High School are helping the community.
Thanks to a $480 grant, the school’s production of “Footloose,” which begins Friday night, will also have a food collection component, explained Maggie Little.
The sophomore, who plays the role of Ethel McCormack, applied for and received a $480 grant from Youth Service America to help fund the “Footloose and Hunger Free” project.
“I was looking into different types of things to help raise food for the Sacks of Love program at my school,” Little said. “[The grant] was talking about world hunger and all of the projects were specifically led to helping to fight hunger.”
As part of the project, the cast of “Footloose” will be collecting food for students in the county who may not have the money to eat meals at night or on weekends, and rely on free and reduced lunches just to get breakfast and lunch at school, Little said.
The Sacks of Love program is a community project sponsored and staffed by members of Sawnee Woman’s Club.
Attendees are encouraged to bring non-perishable foods to the show, which runs through April 28.
Because the grant was designed for students, all the charitable efforts have been student-led, Little said.
Money from the grant is going to ticketing, advertising, purchasing bins for food drop-offs and backpacks for the kids to carry the food in.
“The big deal is we’re trying to get enough food together so we can feed the children over the summer, which is something we’ve never done before,” Little said.
Sacks of Love has been the recipient of donations in the past from Central’s drama students, including “Trick or Treat so Kids Can Eat” last fall. The Halloween-themed activity was what inspired Little to up the ante for helping Sacks of Love.
“I know it touched the hearts of a lot of us in the drama department,” Little said of the October event. “I thought, how can we improve upon that?
“Hopefully, this can sort of be a tradition and that we can keep our passion strong about fighting hunger.”