El Toro Trounces Capo in Food Drive

For some high schoolers, with senior year comes slacking off.

But for others, it's the last chance to participate in school activities that may have slipped by in previous years.

"Senior year—no regrets," is 17-year-old Cortland Lioi's motto this year, his last at .

Classmates call the senior the motivating force behind the El Toro classroom that collected more than 19,000 food items to donate this year.

In total, the school collected an astonishing 74,221 food items since Nov. 7, beating out the entire Capistrano Unified School District which tallied 32,383 altogether.

El Toro High in a bid to encourage its students—and those in the Capistrano district—to push collecting efforts to the max.

Teacher  topped the school's classrooms in the food drive, collecting 19,873 food items to be donate to and Adopt-A-Neighbor.

"It's my last year [at El Toro]," Lioi said. "I love Mr. Roberts. I needed to do this."

Lioi gave regular pep talks in class, encouraging others to go door-to-door asking for donations.

"It's the easiest thing in the world, going door-to-door," he said Friday. "Everybody's capable of doing it."

Another of Roberts' students, 17-year-old Katie Benavente, said Lioi's school spirit spurred other students to action.

"Even if it's just one can, that's contributing," she said.

The generosity of Lake Forest residents, who donated food items to students who came to their door or stood outside of local grocery stories asking for cans, pushed the class to top all other El Toro classrooms. 

Dump trucks and vans parked outside the student leadership room Friday morning at El Toro School as hundreds of students lugged bags, boxes and crates of cans and other food items to the waiting vehicles.

With dance music pounding in the background, students assisted each other and nonprofit employees in loading the trucks.

Norah Dopudja, South County Outreach director of operations, teared up when the final count was announced Friday morning at El Toro High.

"These food drives will carry us through spring," she said.

The CUSD high schools each collected the following amounts:

Aliso Niguel: 6,000

San Clemente: 720

Dana Hills: 16,000

San Juan Hills: 4,187

Tesoro: 4,700+

Capistrano Valley: 775