Juniors Eli Witte, Savana Nawojski and Amy Conaway are on a mission to decrease hunger within the Westside community. The trio has started a project called “Pending Cans,” with a red bin at the end of the checkout lines at Hy-Vee located on 90th and Center streets for customers to donate right after purchasing.

The project started out as an assignment given to all students in the sophomore Honors Literature class. The Community Based Learning project chooses a different topic for all students to focus on each year. These three students picked out hunger and basic necessities.

“Hunger is not only a major health risk, but also has negative effects on a child’s ability to learn and develop,” Conaway said. “We realized that people are often too lazy to donate to the food bank so we wanted to make it more accessible and part of everyday life.”

The program is designed to benefit the community, but is targeted at the donators themselves, allowing direct donations immediately after purchases. All the donator has to do is buy any non-perishable items they wish to donate, then place in the labeled red bin located near customer service.

“This makes it easier to donate and reduces the amount of expired donations,” Conaway said.

Although the project was assigned in March of 2014, these three now-juniors are carrying out Pending Cans and have high hopes for the future.

“I hope … that by doing this we can change someone’s life for the better,” Conaway said. “I think ther’s no better purpose in life than to improve the lives around you … We hope to expand to Whole Foods and Baker’s this year. I’d also love to see other districts adopt a similar program.”