Following the tragic news of the deaths of the three students who were victims in the Chapel Hill Shooting, Deah Barakat, and Yusor and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, Athens Drive introduced a new food drive, Feed Their Legacy, in order to commemorate the victims, which recently came to a successful conclusion,

The students and faculty of Athens Drive feel especially connected to this tragic event because two of the victims, Yusor and Razan, were once students at the school. The death of Barakat still impacted many of the people at Athens and in the area, as he was an alumni of Broughton High School, another school in Raleigh, and he also had a cousin who attends Athens, Diana Barakat.

English and Newspaper teacher Patricia Hornick was one of the leading forces in organizing this food drive.

“I set up this food drive because Yusor and Razan were in newspaper class. Both of them were awesome kids dedicated to service, and I wanted to do something to give back to the community in their memory,” said Hornick.

The idea of organizing a food drive was due to the common interest of Deah, Yusor and Razan: giving back to the community.

In high school, the three students participated in clubs such as National Honors Society, Family Career and Community Leaders of America and National Technical Honors Society. The three students even took the responsibility of finding volunteer work into their own hands after graduating high school.

Deah and Yusor were both in the dental medicine program at UNC-Chapel Hill and had worked with the Syrian-American Medical Society since last summer. Deah was raising money for a relief trip to Rihaniya, Turkey. Yusor and Razan were also founding members for the Triangle community chapter of the United Muslim Relief.

There were many other programs the students were involved in and many other volunteer activities they frequently did, including working with food banks. In fact, Deah’s last Facebook post was about him participating in an event where free food was donated to over 75 homeless people.

A food drive in the name of the three victims was thought to be the perfect idea for commemorating the victims and all their selfless work. As extra incentive, a prize of a party catered by Bojangles was offered to the first period class who donated the most cans by March 13, which ended up being awarded to Jacqueline Berg’s class.

By the conclusion of the food drive, over 1,600 cans were donated by students and teacher at Athens Drive, exceeding Hornick’s goal of 1,000 cans.

In addition to the food drive itself, there was a vigil held in the Athens Drive cafeteria before all of the canned goods collected in the victims’ names were delivered by student and teacher volunteers Friday, March 13. The vigil was organized by Hornick, senior, Sana Haseeb, and other member of the Muslim Student Association.

“Not only were they my friends, they were respected and well known around the community, so I decided I wanted to help. I feel like their deaths brought a big change in my life and having a vigil is something we can do to honor their legacy. The food drive is also a good idea, but I don’t think it is all we can do. As long as we are living, we should be the most helpful we can be. We can always donate and help the homeless because continuously giving back to the community is what they stood for,” said Haseeb.