Christmas comes early at Warming House as St. Joe's students make annual delivery

Fri, Dec 20th 2019 04:00 pm

For the 38th year in a row, students from St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute in Buffalo delivered a truckload full of non-perishable food items and paper products to the Warming House, St. Bonaventure University's soup kitchen on North Union Street in Olean.

More than three dozen boys from St. Joe's took less than an hour Friday morning to unload boxes containing more than 13,000 items. The boys were then treated to pizza and soda by SBU's Franciscan Center for Social Concern (FCSC), which oversees the Warming House.

The generosity of the boys at St. Joe's never ceases to amaze Alice Miller Nation, director of the FCSC.

"This is not an obligation for these young men, it's a passion, passed down through generations of students at St. Joe's," Miller Nation said. "That's a tribute to the faculty and staff at St. Joe's, who've embedded a commitment to service in all that they do at the school."

The Warming House is the primary beneficiary of the school's annual Food Basket drive, now in its 49th year; they've been helping the Warming House since 1982. This annual Christmastime donation is far and away the largest donation of non-perishables the Warming House receives each year.

On Thursday, Miller Nation attended St. Joseph's end-of-semester Mass to offer thanks to the students in advance of the delivery.

The Warming House is the oldest student-run soup kitchen in the nation.

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