After a week of spirited donations, the first Homecoming Food Drive ended with the seniors in first.
Here is a breakdown of final results.
1st: 2012, 11488 points
2nd: 2013, 6172 points
3rd: 2014, 1779 points
4th: 2015, 441 points

The food drive, which merged with Homecoming week for the first time this year, constitutes a tenth of each class’s total Homecoming score.

“Since the food drive is new,  [Leadership made it worth] 10 percent, the same as dress-up days,”Community commissioner junior Srisruthi Ramesh said.

The food drive was combined with Homecoming this year as a way to involve the community in the school’s festivities;  Leadership publicized the Homecoming Food Drive both on campus and locally.

“One of the [responsibilities] of Community commission is to impact the community of the school, as well as the surrounding neighborhood, and we thought the food drive was the best way to do that,” Community commissioner senior Caleb Wang said.

The food drive caught students, parents, and other Cupertino residents in the Homecoming spirit.

“[We actually had] people in Safeway come up to us and [ask,] ‘Where can we donate the food?’” Ramesh said.

Escalating class competition over the course of Homecoming week had a large impact on the amount of food collected. The senior class won by such a large margin partly because several rumours disseminated by other classes.

“I think the sophomores and juniors spread a rumour that they had like a thousand dollars, and the other classes had like 400 dollars. [The sophomores also started a rumour that] they were stocking it up to put it in on the last day, and that really freaked us out,” Wang said.

The thousands of cans of food collected over the course of the food drive will be picked up by the Second Harvest Food Drive on Oct. 18. After that, they will be packed and distributed to needy families in San Jose and Alameda county.