Moved to help hungry classmates, Amherst EcoLeague collects food

AMHERST — Peel back Amherst's reputation as a middle-class town, and poverty and empty stomachs aren't hard to find, say Lia Morrison and Lucy Fenik. Hunger can be hard to recognize, said the juniors, who are officers in the EcoLeague club at Marion L. Steele High School. In an interview Wednesday, they said too many of their classmates don't know where they'll get their next meal. "On a scale of one to 10, it's a 10," Morrison said to describe the problem. They've resolved to help by asking the city's downtown business community and every teacher in the school to help collect nonperishable goods throughout February to go to Second Harvest Food Bank. The EcoLeague, with adviser and science teacher Angie DeLeon, recently asked Main Street Amherst members to lend helping hands, and were greeted with a chorus of approval. Their goal is to have a donation box in every downtown storefront, where residents can drop off canned goods. And they're asking residents to give the good stuff — 1,000 pounds of pantry cast-offs like pickled beets or creamed spinach won't help as much as peanut butter, pasta, corn, tuna and cereal. DeLeon said Amherst teens have learned hunger isn't an issue just at Thanksgiving and Christmas. "You always hear people looking for donations for not just food but clothes and gifts at the holidays," she said. "We always say, 'Let's help our fellow man,' but we don't keep thinking that way at random times of the year." And of course hunger isn't just an Amherst problem, she said. It can be found everywhere, and DeLeon has seen its specter while teaching in Sandusky and Columbia schools as well. "It seems no matter where I've taught, there's always a food issue," she said. "There are always going to be families who struggle to find meals." The EcoLeague was founded five years ago at Steele to explore the deepening environmental crisis and what students can do about it. It was shelved last year as COVID-19 cases caused schools to adjust, and revived by Morrison this fall. Now she serves as its president with Fenik as vice president. The pair said they've studied the effects of the throw-away fashion industry on the environment, as well as greenwashing — misleading corporate claims that products or services are environmentally sound. But what struck them the most was looking at food waste, something they could see every weekday during the lunch hour. "In the cafeteria we throw away so much food it's ridiculous," Fenik said. The standing rule is that when buying a lunch, you have to take one piece of fruit, she said. Most students end up tossing it, preferring fries, burgers and other junk staples instead. Morrison said she started to understand how hunger and ecology collide while taking part in Chicago-based Eco Circle International, a youth-led nonprofit that focuses on sustainability. Food insecurity, waste, agriculture and deforestation are linked, she said: "I think it all comes down to where all of our trash is going, and that's intersectional with our marine life, our soil and where all of our trash is going." Microplastics — tiny shards from consumer waste — make their way into the water stream and then into fields. Plastic is the most prominent form of debris found in the Great Lakes, according to the National Ocean Service, posing a threat to aquatic life and decreasing the quality of Lake Erie's water considerably. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.