Hampton, Va. - Today folks were dropping off donated food at the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank --a lot of food.
Two fifth graders were behind it all.
Blake Howe and Braedon Swords launched a massive food drive involving schools and local businesses.
Blake explains why this is important to him.
"I want to make a difference. I want to get people to start doing it themselves so that we can make the world a better place," says Blake.
Braedon agrees, "We want other kids to see this and then we want them to do the same and then when we look around the world it'll stop world hunger and nobody has to starve everybody can have food."
They set up a go-fund me website to raise money to buy food. Both boys also agreed for their recent birthdays, to tell people not to give them gifts but to donate food instead.
"First of all, I was shocked; a kid that's 10 that's about to turn 11 not wanting any gifts, instead wanting to do something for others, I mean, I was blown away," says Braedon's dad.
Food and Fund Drive Manager with the Foodbank, Donna Tighe says what the boys are doing really means a lot.
"This is a perfect time to do this wonderful food drive to help us with our summer feeding because our donations really drop off during the summer months," says Tighe.
Blake and Braedon had a fairly sizable goal they wanted to donate 2,000 pounds. Because of their passion and their big hearts, we presented them with a NewsChannel 3 People Taking Action award along with a $300 Visa gift card from our community partner Southern Bank.
And when the Foodbank finally weighed all the food these two boys helped bring in, the amount was a whopping 2,717 pounds! This was more than 700 pounds over their goal!
It had Blake's dad fighting back tears.
"You don't see kids like this very often these days and to see them happy, makes me happy."
The amount of food donated will help provide 2,200 meals.
