FULLERTON, Calif. – Some of the biggest acts of kindness come from the smallest of sources.

Nine-year-old Zooey Conger and 8-year-old Abby Fernandez are organizing the donations that have come in for their school’s 6th annual Thanksgiving Food Drive.

“I think it makes me feel joyful and happy because all this food is going to people that don’t have food,” says Zooey, a third grader.

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Up until November 20, Zoey, Abby, and the kids at Orangethorpe Elementary School in Fullerton are asking people to drop off canned food and ingredients to help families have warm meals on Thanksgiving. The best friends are organizing the drive this school year, but they weren’t the ones who came up with idea.

The food drive was started six years ago by a kindergartener named Quinn Millard who learned that there are people who can’t afford to eat. Quinn brought the idea to the school and launched the food drive. When he left the school, his little sister Molly took over.

Molly, Zoey, and Abby are best friends so they devastated when they found out that Molly and her family were moving to Wisconsin.  

“I felt really sad because she was the first person at school that I ever met and she was the only person I hung out with,” says Abby.

Instead of letting the food drive end, the students volunteered to keep it going. Dr. Ginger Frady is the school’s principal.

“Coming to Orangethorpe last year as principal, it was so refreshing to find out that there were already students here who were excited about giving back and making the world a better place,” says Frady.

The principal says the Millard siblings were touched by their friends and sent the school a video.

“Hi this is Quinn and Molly reporting from Wisconsin. We wanted to thank you for supporting our food drive. Help make a difference in our community, our state and our world,” said the siblings in the video.

Despite the distance between them, Abby, Zoey, and their school are honoring their friends who helped teach them importance of being compassionate and caring hoping others will follow their example.  

Donations from the food drive will be going to Pathways of Hope in Fullerton, which is an organization that provides food, shelter, and housing to families that are experiencing hunger and homelessness in North Orange County. For more information about Pathways of Hope, please visit the website here.