A yearly food drive at Scranton Preparatory School met its goal of collecting food for the community and helping families during the Thanksgiving season.
Students collected a little more than 200,000 pounds of food for this year’s Great Ignatian Challenge, a yearly service project where students and the community collect and distribute food. The challenge, now in its fifth year, began Oct. 24 and ended Tuesday.
Students were challenged this year to collect 200,000 pounds of food; they collected 205,157 pounds. The food is donated to places like the Friends of the Poor and Catherine McCauley Center, the St. Francis of Assisi Kitchen, St. Joseph’s Center and the NEPA Youth Shelter.
Senior Patrick Hazzouri, a member of the challenge committee, was confident the school could surpass the goal. Most of the food was collected by the student body, with the committee creating incentives for students to donate, such as wearing a hoodie with their uniform or a free dress-down day. Other challenges were between grades for who could collect the most food.
“Kids do get really pumped up about it,” senior Rebecca Remedios, the event’s coordinator, said. “Doing these challenges is definitely what gets kids mostly to donate.”
The challenge received support from local businesses, including the Retro Cafe, Cadden Bros. Moving and Storage, ShopRite of Moosic and Schiff’s Food Service. Rebecca said they are grateful for the support, and getting the word out about the challenge was key.
“They’re just always willing to help, which we are so thankful for,” she said. “It does help us a lot because the school could only do so much.”
Rebecca said the collection was particularly important as the federal government shutdown and state budget impasse took place while it was underway. She felt people donated more because of those challenges.
Food is packed up in boxes for the Great Ignatian Challenge Food Drive in Scranton Preparatory School in Scranton Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
“People really do realize that there is a serious need for this,” she said. “It’s really something that brings our community together, especially during this Thanksgiving time where families shouldn’t have to worry about not being able to have a Thanksgiving dinner.”
Senior Addison Ahern, a member of the student organizing committee, commended her classmates for their effort in the drive.
“I think every single person poured their heart and soul into this,” she said. “It wasn’t really about the competition or the incentives or anything. It’s more about the direct impact we’re making on the community and the families and the people we can feed directly with all the food that we’ve raised.”
In the five years the challenge has taken place, the amount of food the school aims to collect grows as the need has grown, starting at a little more than 65,000 pounds the first year, said Jeanine Pavuk, the school’s director of annual giving and the challenge’s staff organizer.
“Our goal every year is to make sure we meet the need of the community,” she said. “As that need grows, so does our goal.”
Pavluk said the need is greater this year, as in addition to the budgetary challenges on the state and federal levels, the cost of food continues to go up. She admires the students’ work ethic in putting it together.
“They are here every day convincing their friends, their classmates to help the community,” she said. “It’s really what Prep is built on, being men and women for others.”
Pavuk said she hopes the drive helps Northeast Pennsylvania families be happy, healthy and thriving this Thanksgiving. She also appreciates that it teaches students how to reach out to the wider community.
Although the challenge has ended, Pavuk said for the first time, drives will be held throughout the school year. She hopes students will see that the need for food doesn’t end at Thanksgiving.
“Whatever the community needs per month is what we’ll be looking to raise,” Pavuk said.
She admires the students for having brought the community together for the challenge.
“They built a community around this food drive of people who didn’t necessarily all go together, and I’m so proud of that,” Pavuk said.