This article appears courtesy of the Springfield Republican.
October 8, 2007
The Amherst Regional High School field hockey team is taking on two challenges this month.
The first is the race in the B Division. The second is a month-long campaign to collect food for the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts - and the team is asking the other 24 field hockey squads in the Pioneer Valley to join the battle.
The campaign is called the "Hockey Harvest," and its object is to collect as many nonperishable food items, boxed or canned, as possible for the Food Bank.
Amherst players will have collection boxes at both home and away games, and at school, and coach Carol Samuels has contacted the other 24 coaches, hoping to expand participation.
"The players wanted to do a community service project as a group and thought this would be an effort that would benefit those in the area less fortunate than themselves," Samuels said. "It’s a way of getting our focus broader than the 100- by 60-yard rectangle in which we play every afternoon."
" We have three goals, to collect as many food items as we can, to learn more about hunger in our communities, and to work together as a hockey community towards a common goal," she said.
The project was conceived last spring.
"Coach Samuels also coaches lacrosse, and we were talking about doing something, but we decided to do it during field hockey," said senior Olivia Bass. "She approached me and I thought it was a great idea. Everyone was totally excited about it. The other day we told the junior varsity team about it, and they were really excited as well."
Bass doesn’t expect the project to be a distraction on game days.
"We have a great booster club and I’m pretty sure they’ll help us on game day," she said.