For the past 32 years, Collegedale Academy has been collecting cans of food that go to the Samaritan Center, located in Ooltewah, Tenn., and the cans benefit the Samaritan Center’s food pantry for a whole year.

A former CA teacher, Richard Cadavero, also known as CAD, started this annual tradition in his classroom.

He began this tradition because he wanted to serve the community and teach his students the importance of reaching out and using themselves to be servants to the world.

The can drive was located in his classroom for a while, but as the years went on, the can drive became more of a massive event.

CAD taught Bible at Collegedale Academy for 44 years until he retired in 2009. His can drive was then re-named CAD4HOPE by his successor, Pastor Tom Hayes, in honor of CAD.

In the early 90’s, this program was called Project 5,000 because CAD would challenge the students to bring in 5,000 cans collectively. By the year 2003, the students were collecting 40,000 cans.

This past Tuesday, November 17, Collegedale Academy collected 11,475.75 pounds of food from 60 neighborhoods.

Bags of food are still being donated, so the final number of pounds collected will change and increase to determine the official CAD4HOPE total.