Mercadito donations, the food collected by The Columbus Middle and High Schools to provide for the maintenance staff and to the communities outside the school, are down this year and insufficient to meet demand.

The Mercadito is a program started about a decade ago as a way to encourage students to serve the community by providing food for people in need.

“Our goal is to collect at least 60 items of mercadito in a day.” Sonia Franco, Columbus School Foundation Assistant, said.

In past years, STUCO has played an important role in promoting the Mercadito and organizing students and parents to donate, but this year they have taken no role in this process.

“We are going to start planning a way in which, STUCO, can help to improve the amount of food the mercadito receives, ” Pablo Monsalve, 11th grade STUCO said.

The participation from parents and students hasn’t matched the support from previous years.  While the Elementary School has contributed the most food items, the Middle and High school collection bins remain mostly empty.

“We are trying to encourage students to bring more food to the mercadito,” Mari Luz Meza, TCS Foundation Director, said.

The mercadito contributions support many neighbors of TCS. Meza is meeting with all the TCS principals, to see what can be done to encourage students from Middle and High school to bring in more food.

“We know that they still have a heart for this since they are the same kids that brought things when they were in elementary school,” Meza said.

In addition to a greater quantity of food, the foundation is also requesting that students donate a greater variety of food. Most donations have only consisted of rice, beans and pasta.

“We talked with Andres Rendon, the counselor, so that he could help us to encourage students to bring in more stuff, but nothing happened,” one maintance worker said.

But the mercadito is not only for the school staff, it also goes to homes surrounding the school.

“What we also want is to give the mercadito to people who don’t have enough resources, to get food,” Meza said.

The police officers from the area tell the school when new people, some of whom are fleeing violence, arrive in the community and the foundation gives them mercadito until they establish themselves.

“There are people who live in caves, caves that the native people used and we also take some of the food to them,” Franco said.

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