Jaspers help feed hundreds for Thanksgiving

During his nearly two years as athletic director at Manhattan College, Noah Lefevre has made community involvement and giving back as synonymous with his athletic department as wins and losses. So it was no surprise this past week — with the Thanksgiving holiday looming — when dozens of members of the Jaspers’ athletic community banded together for a food drive to help the needy in the community.

And as it turned out, it just might be the biggest victory on the Manhattan sports calendar all year.

“As a general charge this year, my conversations with our Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) have been to let’s try and get in the community more and do more things that are helpful to our neighbors,” said Lefevre, who was named Manhattan’s AD in February 2014. “We’ve been doing a ton of different projects this year, including some work with the Wounded Warriors Project and some local community groups, and this food drive is just one of the many great projects that our SAAC is involved with.

“The notion of the food drive specifically came about because it’s Thanksgiving week and we want to do everything we can to ensure local families are having the best possible Thanksgiving they can have,” he added.

The point person on the project this year was Caitlin Bricketto, a graduate student at the college and former tennis player. She and the SAAC board — which included Robert Gebhard, a junior on the track team, and senior softball player Meredith Bryant — somehow managed to get all 19 of Manhattan’s varsity programs involved in the food drive. The results surpassed what anyone involved could have anticipated.

“We did this charity two years ago and were very successful as we were able to feed over 400 families,” Bricketto said as she and other supporters including Gebhard and Bryant loaded up a van with bins brimming with donated food. “And I think we may have doubled that this year. We did really well.”