The Palo Alto High School Youth Community Service-Interact club is holding a school wide food drive from Dec. 1-16 to benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank.

According to YCS-Interact Co-President Irene Wang, collection boxes for cans and nonperishable food items under 15 pounds will be located in fourth period classrooms. To encourage donations, YCS-Interact is offering a pizza party to the class that donates the heaviest amount of food items by Dec. 16. The food drive also accepts money, with each dollar counting as one pound.

“YCS-Interact has run this food drive for the past two years,” Wang said. “It’s one of our biggest school events. Every Thursday after school up until Winter Break we will have a collection day to count how many pounds each fourth period class has collected.”

Wang also noted that all teachers were welcome to participate, even if they have not replied to emails regarding collection boxes. YCS-Interact club collect donations from all interested fourth period classes.

However, each individual item must weigh less than 15 pounds to be eligible for donation.

This is the second year that YCS-Interact has run Paly’s annual food drive. The organization revived the Paly tradition after several years of dormancy when the club the previously headed to effort disbanded.

The Web site for YCS-Interact describes the organization as a merging of two community service programs, the YCS and Interact clubs. YCS is focused around service and leadership opportunities while the Interact program has two large scale community service projects each year. YCS-Interact is also in charge of a Family Giving Tree program at Paly to donate holiday gifts to those in need.

Last year Paly collected 9,321 pounds of food and received a Gold Medal Award from Second Harvest. The food bank awarded Paly based on the number of pounds and dollars they raised during the food drive.

More information on the Paly YCS-Interact club can be found at its Web site.