Student’s project is to help feed people in need in Cape May, Atlantic counties
OCEAN CITY — About 50 volunteers, many of them high school students, huddled around tables at Ocean City VFW Post 6650, furiously making sandwiches on a chilly Monday morning to mark the Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Service.
According to Ocean City High School junior Henry Vaules, who organized the event, they hoped to top the just more than a thousand sandwiches they made last year to be distributed to people in need in Cape May and Atlantic counties.
Under the auspices of the Travis Manion Foundation, Vaules was carrying on the four-year-old tradition started by his older sister, Isabella, an OCHS grad who’s now a sophomore at Virginia Tech.
“When we were younger, in our old town, good family friends of ours had a sandwich-making event on Martin Luther King Day just like this,” Vaules said. “Once we moved here, we thought it would be a good thing to bring here. My sister started it and I’ve continued it since she went to college. It’s great to do, it’s great for the community.”
The goal is “to make as many sandwiches as possible and distribute them out to the community. We go to a bunch of places all the way down to Cape May Court House and up into Atlantic City and Galloway. Really, just whoever needs them,” he said. “Last year we made a little over a thousand, so hopefully we beat it.”
The volunteers included children with their parents, other adults and high school students, including Key Club members.
Vaules credited the help from his parents, Mike and Amie Vaules, and the VFW and Commander Mike Morrissey.
“I can’t thank them enough,” Vaules said.
He explained the VFW provided the meat and cheese for the sandwiches and his family provided the bread and bags.
“I think it makes for a great day of service,” Henry said.
Amie Vaules said the family can relate to the Travis Manion Foundation mission and cited that as one of the reasons they started the sandwich drive.
“It’s a great project that has been going on for four years now,” foundation representative Kevin Mills Jr. said.
“The foundation is super appreciative. MLK Day of Service is a huge initiative on our end, so we’re always looking for projects and I was lucky enough to bring my wife and newborn,” Mills said. Smiling, he added his son “didn’t make any sandwiches yet, but we’ll get him there.”
“We have a lot of amazing volunteers out there. Our whole organization activates today and gets out there and gives back to local communities in honor of Dr. King,” Mills said.
“The big mantra of the Travis Manion Foundation is ‘If not me, then who?’ It talks about being big in the little things. If someone doesn’t step up to do it, who will? That’s what we really try to inspire,” he said. “We have youth like Henry who step up in their local community and are able to recognize the need that we have people who are hungry and there is a need to be able to give back to the local community. Henry is really embodying it through this initiative and throughout the year.”
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff