(Dec. 22, 2010) — While all the students were building their “giving trees,” ASB Director of Activities Alyssa-Mathew Joseph pointed out that Carol Pettegrew’s and Julie Ann Melville’s classes were in a head-to-head competition on Dec 3. Out of all the classes, these two had the most cans and the most participants to make their trees. At the bottom of the amphitheater during lunch, students huddled into groups, assembling their giving trees out of the cans their third period class collected. Throughout the week of Nov. 29, Clark held its annual canned food drive. Students were asked to bring in cans and nonperishable food in order to collect food for Glendale Path Achieve, an organization which provides an array of housing and support services for the homeless. The competition began when the classes were given ten minutes to construct the tallest “giving tree” with all their cans. At the end, Melville’s third period class won with the tallest tree. According to Mathew-Joseph, Pettegrew’s class had the most cans, but the students were unable to create a taller tree. Junior Dillen Maurer felt the reason why Pettegrew’s class didn’t succeed was due to the fact that they were unorganized. A group of students were sent to make the tree without a plan or any idea of how to stack the cans. “Everyone was just stacking without thinking of the tree’s height,” said Maurer. This is the second year in a row in which Melville has won the canned food drive. Her third period class received doughnuts for making the tallest giving tree and Pettegrew’s third period class received doughnut holes for having the most cans. Pettegrew also gave her classes doughnut holes because she was very proud of them all for donating cans regardless of their period. Melville said teamwork is everything and she said she felt her third period class worked great as a team to construct their tree. In order to help her class, she brought in six cases of Cup-of-Noodles, but the rest of the cans were brought in by her students. She gave her third period students an extra bonus by giving them a homework late pass if each student brought in at least five cans each. Most of the class brought the cans and worked together to make their tree. Melville said she felt that the canned food drive could be best described by junior Gayaneh Dermarkarian’s quote: “Why do I feel like I’ve accomplished something huge?” Dermarkarian was one of the main builders of Melville’s tree and said she felt great after winning. Mathew Joseph said this year Clark donated the most amount of cans they have ever collected.