As a senior at Gig Harbor High School, Conner Keliher was required to complete 25 hours of community service as part of his senior project.

So he looked to his grandmother, Gail, for inspiration.

“She’s been volunteering at FISH Food Bank for a long time,” Keliher said. “The senior project gave me an opportunity to follow in her footsteps.”

Keliher organized a weeklong food drive, from Jan. 14 to Friday, for his fellow students to collect and donate food to FISH. He hoped to collect 300 food items during the course of the week. At press time, and before the final count has been completed, Keliher had gathered 453.

Keliher said he tried to inspire a high level of donation with a competition between GHHS classrooms. The senior, who hopes to attend community college in eastern Washington next year and then study psychology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, hoped to give students incentives with a promise to buy donuts for the classroom that collected the most food.

Several teachers at GHHS helped Keliher in his efforts, including some who offered extra credit for food donations. The average classroom donated about 20 items, Keliher said, but certain classes went above and beyond.

The school’s paraeducation program, for example, used the food drive as a lesson. Students in the class earn money for doing various jobs, and they were directed to take $2 from their account to spend on a field trip to the grocery store to purchase food for the drive. Students researched prices beforehand in order to determine how to get the most food for their money.

“We always look for opportunities to use money skills and budgeting,” paraeducator Susan Casey said. “So we made it a fun outing that was educational as well.”

The paraeducation classroom ended up with one of the highest donation totals with 89 items.

Civics teacher Joel Peyton also tried to get his class more involved in the food drive, reminding and cajoling his students to bring in food. He said he recognized the effort it took from Keliher to bring his project together.

“This is a hard thing to pull off,” Peyton said. “Because, let’s face it, with high-schoolers, it can be tough to get donations.”

The Peninsula School District is looking into changes to the required senior project, including the 25 hours of service.

“If they make some changes, I hope they keep the community-service component,” Peyton said.

Keliher agreed that he thought the community-service experience was a valuable part of his senior year. Not all of his 25 hours were completed through organizing the food drive, he said, so he planned to finish them up through volunteering at FISH.

“It teaches you to think outside of yourself,” Keliher said. “It connects you to your community. And it makes you realize that people actually care and would like to help.”