Harriton High School’s NHS students donate 157 boxes, nearly $5K in gift cards to feed Montgomery County families

November 26, 2025March 31, 2026

Unfortunate families throughout Montgomery County may have more to be thankful for this holiday season. In fact, they’ll have an entire school bus more thanks to one local high school

For the 13th year, Harriton High School’s National Honor Society (NHS) members led a school-wide food drive to support Montgomery County families in need ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. On Friday, Nov. 21, the NHS students helped to sort, pack, and load foods and financial donations in order to transport the goods to county officials.

“Students collected food and monetary donations from their classmates, families, and school staff throughout the month of November,” said a release from the Lower Merion School District. “Thanks to the generosity of the Harriton community, the NHS drive netted enough food to fill 157 banker’s boxes with non-perishable items and nearly $5,000 in monetary donations, which funded the purchase of grocery gift cards.”

Harriton High School students that take part in the National Honor Society also took time out last week to help those less fortunate with a food drive. (Image courtesy of LMSD)

The students worked hard to ensure families throughout the county would have a brighter holiday by putting food on the table in time for Thanksgiving. With recent delays to SNAP programs due to the federal government shutdown, more and more families find themselves unable to make ends meet.

“SNAP has for decades enabled low-income Pennsylvanians to put food on their families’ tables and supported our communities’ social health and economic stability,” said State Rep. Joe Ciresi of Montgomery County in a recent release. “At a time when food insecurity is growing in Montgomery County, the federal budget cuts and changes to SNAP will have an impact on our communities like that of an asteroid hitting earth.”

Ciresi said in September 2025 that food insecurity in Montgomery County is growing at the time the SNAP cuts were being enacted. According to Feeding America, 9.9% of Montgomery County’s population, or 85,500 people, were food insecure in 2023, and 40% of the population was below the SNAP threshold.

According to a 2024 Montgomery County report, SNAP enrollment in Montgomery County had tripled, from 17,194 in 2004 to 62,700 in 2023. Many families will be grateful for the students’ hard work.

“The students, with help from members of the school’s custodial staff, packed and numbered the boxes, loaded them onto pallets and wrapped them in plastic for transport to the offices of the Montgomery County Office of Children and Youth (OCY) in Norristown,” said the LMSD release. “Each box was destined for a particular family, identified by County social workers, with the appropriate amount of food depending on the number of family members.”

Last week, more than 130 NHS students took the loaded banker boxes in school buses to Norristown, where County staff “met them with a round of applause and speeches of appreciation.”

“NHS officers presented OCY leadership with the bag full of grocery giftcards, and then helped members of LMSD’s Operations Team unload the truck full of food boxes that they had driven to the OCY offices,” said LMSD in the release. “From there, the students helped social workers load the boxes for their identified families into their cars for delivery in time for holiday feasts.”

Montgomery County Commissioner Thomas Dibello joined other community leaders to thank the students of Harriton High School’s National Honor Society for their hard work done to feed those in need this holiday season. (Image courtesy of LMSD)

National Honor Society advisor Donna Rossi helped the students coordinate this event each year. With her assistance, the NHS students’ actions truly impacted the county’s families in need. School district leadership said that these NHS students lived up to Lower Merion School District’s motto: “Enter to Learn. Go Forth to Serve.”

Certainly, more Montgomery County families will have a brighter Thanksgiving thanks to their hard work.