Palo Alto High School’s Youth Community Service-Interact club plans to host this year’s Family Giving Tree and Food Drive events following Thanksgiving break, according to senior co-president Sonya Kohli.YCS-Interact hopes to reach a goal of at least 5000 pounds of food for the Food Drive and 100 filled cards for the Family Giving Tree this year, according to Kohli.“We want to beat our past years in the number of pounds we collected for the Food Drive,” Kohli said. “Our biggest collection was from 2008, that year we not only succeeded in collecting 4,539 pounds, but also won an award from the Second Harvest Food Bank for collecting the most cans in our area.”Kohli says that last year’s events, specifically the Food Drive, did not achieve as much success as hoped for due to changes in schedule and lack of a physical tree. “Last year’s Food Drive wasn’t as successful as previous years because we had to move it to April,” Kohli said. “Most people were expecting it to be in December, but we hope this year will be much better. We weren’t allowed to use a Christmas tree due to it being a religious symbol, and having the cards on the wall were less noticeable. We hope this year we will be allowed to use a tree again.”Students are encouraged to buy items specified on children’s wish cards as gifts during the Family Giving Tree event, according to Kohli. “We receive wish cards from the organization that specify a small gift that a child has requested for Christmas,” Kohli said. “We get as many as 100 every year and people take them from a plastic tree that we bring in. We were able to donate about 90 gifts and around 50 dollars last year.”A competition will be held during the Food Drive with 4th period classes and prizes will be awarded to those who rank in first, second and third place in number of pounds donated, according to Kohli. “In the Food Drive we hold a competition between 4th period classes, and whichever class collects the most pounds in canned food wins prizes,” Kohli said. “The prizes include a pizza party for first, a donut party for second and candy bars for third.”