Traveling around St. John’s Hall, the dean’s offices, or the mailroom, students and faculty alike have probably seen collection boxes filled with spice bottles. Selam Olson ’24 brought the spice drive to the Choate community to benefit Jewish Family Services and Christian Community Action, two food pantries and assistance programs located in New Haven. Olson was inspired by their late cousin, who “ran a similar project in high school a while back,” “After her death, I decided that now was the time for me to run the project,” they shared.
Olson’s experiences at a previous school also influenced the project: “I went to a school in an area with a lot of people with lower incomes, and a lot of the time at school lunch, kids would go around and get free salt and pepper packets from the school because they couldn’t afford it on their own … We go to a school where people can afford that kind of stuff, so why not give back to people who can’t?”
Olson faced several challenges while planning the drive. First, they had to do most of the coordination over break. Second, they had to think of ways to get people interested. In the end, they decided to collaborate with Adia Decker ’24 to create a promotional video to share during the School Meeting. “It was sort of challenging trying to see what kids would actually respond to,” they said.
In order to better engage students in initiatives such as the Spice Drive, Dean of Students Mr. Michael Velez ’00 highlighted Choate’s numerous resources available to the Choate community. These included “the Dean of Students office, the E&I team, and Student Activities.” He added that student organizations are “key if we’re looking at keeping support ongoing beyond the end date of a particular fundraiser or drive.”
When asked, Olson expressed interest in hosting a rerun of the spice drive. “I think it was a good experience and brought light to simple ways that we can support local food pantries and low-income people in a very inexpensive way,” they said. “Anyone with a little bit of money can buy spices. They run from one dollar to about five dollars.” The spice drive is able to support food pantries and low-income families by providing them with a commonly overlooked resource.
Olson also offered a message to anyone interested in starting a similar project to the Spice Drive: “Don’t give up, because there are a lot of moving parts to running something like this. If you have a good idea, find people that will help you, get it done, and keep going.”
