From November 12 to November 22, Los Altos held it’s annual winter food drive for the Second Harvest Food Bank. This year, 25 percent of the monetary proceeds raised by the food drive, Red Cross Club and Knit Together Club were donated to victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

“We raised $8,060.15 and about 3,159 pounds of food, although people keep dropping off donations so it may go up,” senior Anica Nangia said.

The top classes were Randall in first place with 1,668 pounds, Arriada-Brown in second place with 1,392 pounds and Cardellini in third place with 683 pounds.

Each dollar donated is equivalent to 2.5 pounds of food. Based on this scale, Los Altos raised 23,300 pounds of food this year, as opposed to 22,000 pounds last year.

The number of monetary donations this year significantly went up. Last year, the school collected $4785.95.

“We’ve been getting more money than actual food which is a trend we’ve noticed,” Anica said. “It’s good because second harvest can usually get more for the dollar than we can so we encouraged [donating money] more [this year].”

In general, the drive also ran more smoothly this year than it has in the past.

“Unlike last year, we did collections in second period rather than third and I think it worked a lot better because announcements are during second, so teachers and students were reminded to pass around the box and encouraged to donate,” Anica said. “[Teachers would get really motivated] by us announcing the leading classes everyday.”